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LOVE IN CHIEF 

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BY 

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ROSE K. WEEKES 

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“ One should master one’s passions (love, in chief). 

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And be loyal to one’s friends.” 

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NEW YORK AND LONDON 

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HARPER & BROTHERS 

PUBLISHERS « MCMIV 







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Two Anoifs Rfir.^ived 

SEP lb 1904 

^ 'loDj^eht Entry 
Class' <J 4>xxo. No. 

9^729 

COPY B 


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Copyright, 1904, by Harper & Brothers. 


.. 4 // rights reserved. 
Published September, 1904. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 

I. Write Me as One who Loves His Fellow- 

men I 

II. He that Showed Mercy on Him . . n 

III. The Proper Study of Mankind is Man . 21 

IV. I Always Did What I Devised ... 35 

V. She Goes on Sunday to the Church . 48 

VI. Honesty is the Best Policy .... 64 

VII. Courage Quand Meme 78 

VIII. I Will Not Let Thee Go 100 

IX. We Took'Sweet Counsel Together. . 113 

X. Was That the Landmark? 125 

XI. In Arden 141 

XII. And Wilt Thou Leave Me Thus?. . . 156 

XIII. The First Drops of the Thunder- 

Shower 177 

XIV. Small Beer 189 

XV. Colloquies with an Outsider .... 205 

XVI. A Night-Piece 218 

XVII. The One Shall be Taken 243 

XVIII. The Other Left 254 

XIX. Romance Brings Up the Nine-Fifteen . 268 

XX. So They Two Went On 283 


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LOVE IN CHIEF 



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LOVE IN CHIEF 


I 

WRITE ME AS ONE WHO LOVES HIS FELLOW-MEN 

T he waiting-room of Dr. Maude’s surgery 
at Monkswell was sparely furnished with 
guests, mainly because the December weather 
was of that mild and unseasonable type com- 
monly called unhealthy. The darkness out- 
side was pierced by a fine, invisible rain, borne 
on a south wind, and the waiting - room, 
though heat as well as light was spread only 
by a single gas-burner, was not cold. One 
patient was with the doctor; the details of his 
complaint could have been overheard by the 
others if they had cared to listen, but they 
did not; sufficient unto them were their own 
diseases. Five centres of self - complacent 
misery were sitting on a cane-seated bench; 
the sixth person was leaning against the wall 
with his hands in his pockets. The only other 

I 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


representative of the male sex was eight years 
old, and had come to have a tooth out; too 
stolid to feel nervous, he sat sucking pepper- 
mints. His mother, in a decent black mantilla 
and a square-fronted bonnet trimmed with red 
chrysanthemums, was talking to a girl with a 
baby about wrongs invisible to the un jaundiced 
eye. The young mother’s dark eyes and 
delicate features had the remains of real 
beauty, though two years of matrimony had 
made her middle-aged ; her pretty young sister, 
sitting beside her, showed what she must have 
been. The baby was not handsome; its pink- 
ish-purple face was framed in a yellow woollen 
hood, and the colour which should have tinged 
its cheeks had settled upon its ugly little button 
of a nose and on its chin. It wheezed; the 
mother coughed loosely; the girl stared before 
her; the young man also coughed, but in- 
obtrusively. He did not give to phthisis its 
due dignity. 

The surgery presently discharged its patient 
and received the small martyr to toothache. 
The young man took the seat left vacant ; and 
the gaslight, falHng on his face, showed thin, 
brown features, eyebrows strongly arched and 
strongly marked, and bright, vagrant eyes 
which took an interest in everything. He 
edged a little closer to the young mother and 
2 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


looked inquiring. Finding that did not an- 
swer, he plunged into conversation with a 
speech which was admirable in sentiment but 
not discreet in wording. 

“Jolly baby, that.” 

“Yes, he was a fine boy,” said the girl, her 
tired eyes quickening as she looked down at her 
child, “but he’s after his teeth now, and it’s 
pulled him daouwn awful. We didn’t have a 
wink of sleep with him last night.” 

“You must be pretty tired, then,” quoth 
the stranger. “Wonder if the little chap 
would come to me?” 

“He don’t like strangers,” said the mother, 
doubtfully. She was unused to hear her boy 
called either a jolly baby or a little chap ; and she 
distrusted the abilities of a young man, plain- 
ly unmarried, moreover, who used such terms. 

“I’ll hold him like a patent rocking-chair,” 
the stranger asserted. “ Come on, sonny. You 
won’t howl at me, will you ? Great land, what 
a weight you are! I never turned ayah be- 
fore — yes, put my eye out, will you? What’s 
wrong besides the teeth?” 

“He’s got a touch of bromtitus; I caught it 
washing-day, and he took it from me. Oh, it’s 
crool work washing in the winter; our houses 
hasn’t any coppers, and we has to do it all out 
at the back.” 


3 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


“ Do you mean you wash the clothes in the 
open air?” 

“ Every mite of ’em. My husband he’s been 
to the landlord times and again, but he won’t 
do nothing for us; and they’re the cheapest 
houses round, so we just have to put up with 
it.” 

“What a beastly shame! Who’s your land- 
lord?” 

“ Old Fane, up at Fanes. Ah, he is a hard 
man. Last time as Mr. Searle went to see him, 
‘You can take or leave it,’ he says; ‘ I can get 
plenty more as won’t complain. I will not be 
pestered with discontented gutter -birds,’ he 
says. So my husband he come away; there 
wasn’t nothing to be done.” 

“Fane, I think you said,” said the brown- 
eyed stranger, upon whose face the tale had 
painted a gleeful anticipation, as he took down 
the name in a pocket-book. “I’m thinking I’d 
like a little friendly conversation with Mr. Fane. 
Whereabouts is your place?” 

“ Burnt House, they call it; right out in the 
fields it is. If he’d put in one copper for the 
six houses, you wouldn’t think he’d ever miss 
the money. But he don’t care about us poor 
folks. I wish we was in Farquhar’s houses, 
that I do,” 

Conversation was here broken by Dr. Maude, 
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LOVE IN CHIEF 


who summoned Mrs. Searle and her sister and 
the baby. Her short interview left her in 
tears. The doctor had ordered milk, which 
seemed to her as far beyond her means as ca- 
viare or turtle-soup. It would be got, but mean- 
while Mrs. Searle would starve, Mr. Searle would 
swear, and the debt at the shop would grow. 
The stranger gave her a shilling, and fled into 
the surgery to escape her thanks. 

The place smelt strong of drugs; shelves 
laden with bottles climbed up one wall, and the 
others were decorated with framed photographs 
and cases of medical books. Everything was 
strictly professional and methodically neat; 
and the doctor, slight and dark in appearance, 
cool and composed in manner, was the essence 
of his room embodied. 

“What’s your trouble?” he asked of the 
stranger, who stood before him interested and 
insouciant, his hands still in his pockets. 

“ Haemorrhage from the lungs. Oh, I’ve had 
the charming complaint before, and I know the 
ways of it; I’ve been despaired of three times 
already. But I’d like you just to tinker up 
my old constitution, if that’s possible.” 

“When did the haemorrhage occur?” 

“ I had a smart attack Sunday, and it’s been 
off and on ever since.” 

“Then you ought to be in bed.” 

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LOVE IN CHIEF 


“Quite so, ^sculapius, but I haven’t one.” 

“There is the workhouse infirmary at Aires- 
worth.” 

“To which I’m on the way; but I didn’t 
think I could git.” 

Then there was silence, while Maude applied 
his stethoscope. After testing the lungs he 
tried the heart, and after the heart other organs, 
and soon discovered that his patient was a col- 
lection of inceptive diseases. His questions 
elicited a tale of ill-health lightly borne in which 
he did not believe, for stoicism is rare in sur- 
gery patients. 

“ I don’t know your face — where do you come 
from?” Maude asked him. 

“ I was at Alresworth with a travelling com- 
pany as a kind of a sort of a shadowy under- 
study of a sub-super, but I knocked up Sun- 
day and was left behind. Nobody missed me. 
I can’t act any more than a dead egg,” said the 
patient, candidly — “ninety-nine, ninety-nine, 
ninety-nine; is that enough? But that don’t 
matter in the profession. Hullo, were you in 
the cricket-team at Queens ? Nice game, crick- 
et. I always shone in it myself.” 

He disengaged himself, and walked across 
to study the photographed groups on the wall. 

“Come back, please; I have not done with 
you,” said the doctor. “What’s your name?” 

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LOVE IN CHIEF 


“Oh, 1 don’t know — ^John Smith, I guess. 
Last time I played cricket was near the Eng- 
lish cemetery at Iquique. Jolly ground it was, 
too. There’s never a drop of rain from year’s 
end to year’s end, so the turf isn’t too good; 
but we had thousand-foot precipices on three 
sides of the ground, and what could you ask 
more ? We played till Saunders made a boun- 
dary hit, and then we hadn’t a rope long enough 
to fetch up the ball. Next time Saunders went 
up there was after Yellow Jack had done with 
him. My hat! it was hot enough for king- 
dom come. The very abomination of desola- 
tion; red hills, and never a blade of grass, ex- 
cept the thread of green where the water comes 
down from the snows.” 

“Well, John Smith,” said the doctor, “I 
can’t do much for you; your constitution’s 
rotten. You had better stop talking, take 
this medicine, and go to the infirmary, if it’s 
true that you have no home. A motor ’bus 
passes here at seven, and goes to Alresworth.” 

The patient made a grimace. “ More land of 
counterpane for me, I suppose. Passes here at 
seven, does it? I shall certainly be ’bus-sick; 
but, after all, tout passe, tout casse, tout lasse. 
Take my tip, ^Esculapius, and don’t you drop 
your cricket. Good-night.” 

It was only half-past six. Maude felt an 
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LOVE IN CHIEF 


impulse to recall the picturesque stoic and bid 
him wait in the surgery until the omnibus 
passed ; but honesty is a rare quality, and the 
stranger, by pleasing him, inspired him with 
mistrust An observant man, he noticed that 
John Smith spoke French like a Frenchman: 
a Parisian could have detected the difference, 
for his accent was that of Guernsey : but Maude 
had learned modem languages at a public 
school. In brief, the rain was inaudible in the 
surgery ; the stranger was a questionable char- 
acter ; and Maude did not ask him in. 

John Smith went out whistling; his frame 
was lean and gaunt and loose - jointed, but he 
walked with a fine swing. The surgery was 
the last house of the village. Some hundred 
yards further on the railway embankment 
spanned the road, and a lane turning up just 
beyond it led to the station. John Smith, 
sauntering along in the increasing rain, found 
shelter beneath the arch and stayed there. The 
wind blew up from the south straight through 
the tunnel, and the scene circumscribed by the 
arc of masonry was wild and beautiful. Across 
the black sky raced a froth of fleecy clouds, 
through which a half-moon shone, girt by a 
pallid zone of blue and bronze. The wild 
streamers were so unearthly pale, the heaven 
so solemnly dark, that only by the moon’s pres- 
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LOVE IN CHIEF 


ence could sky be told from cloud. Gray hills, 
crowned with dark soft masses of woodland, 
folded down to a valley deep in mist, where a 
cluster of golden lights burned like a constella-. 
tion magnified by rain; while up to his very 
feet the streaming road was turned to a sheet 
of glory by a common street-lamp. 

John Smith immediately brought out a pen- 
ny pencil and a penny exercise-book and began 
to write. Valiantly disregarding the inequali- 
ties of the brick -work, he rested the paper 
against the wall. He had thought of some ele- 
gant words and phrases for describing the even- 
ing sky, and wanted to fix them fast on paper 
before they escaped from his volatile memory. 
Actor he had been by chance, artist he was by 
nature ; an artist in words, he professed himself 
gravely; a lover of apt phrase and finely bal- 
anced sentence; one of that happy confrater- 
nity whose goal in a strange room is always the 
bookcase. He had as many interests as ideas, 
but this reigned paramount. 

The wind blew, and the rain came with it. 
It may have been the cold, or it may have been 
the weight of Mrs. Searle’s baby, or it may have 
been the inevitable sequence of his disease, 
which suddenly arrested the writer’s hand, and 
made him, choking, press a handkerchief to his 
lips to quell the flow. He knew how to meet 
9 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


the attack, and, lacking any other couch, lay 
down in the road ; he could not well be wetter, 
and a mud-bath, at least, is warm. His hand- 
kerchief was drenched, but the stream did not 
stop. Presently the moon dimmed before his 
eyes, and his own troubled breathing seemed a 
far-off sound. It crossed his blurred mind that 
he was about to solve the great riddle, and go 
out with the wind ; and he reflected with satis- 
faction that Dr. Maude, who had unmercifully 
turned him out into the rain, would be visited 
by pangs of conscience. He felt neither fear 
nor elation, but a certain regret in leaving a 
world which he had persistently enjoyed in 
spite of all ; after which consciousness went out 
like a spark, and John Smith lay still in the 
road. 


II 

HE THAT SHOWED MERCY ON HIM 

T en minutes later a train passed south- 
wards across the arch. It had discharged 
passengers at the station, and among them one 
who soon came driving down the lane in a high 
dog-cart fitted with pneumatic tyres, acetylene 
lamps, and a correct groom sitting up behind. 
As it turned the comer the horse, a handsome 
chestnut signally well groomed, shied violently 
at John Smith’s prostrate figure, and was 
promptly checked by the driver, who had him 
well in hand. He looked back over his shoul- 
der. “What’s that, Simpson?” 

“ Drunken man, sir,” said the correct groom, 
stolidly. 

“Pleasant weather to lie in the road. Still, 
will you?” He gripped the reins as though to 
curb the restive horse gave him pleasure. “ Just 
go and see if he’s all right, Simpson. He’ll 
get run over lying under the arch there.” 

Simpson got down. He resented his master’s 
charitable fads when they affected his comfort, 
1 1 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


but he dared not complain. It was true that 
Mr. Farquhar carried generosity to his servants 
to its extreme limit, but those who transgressed 
his laws had to go. He bent over John Smith 
and announced with undeviating stolidity : 
“Been fighting, sir.” 

“ Fighting, has he ? Come and hold the horse 
for a minute.” 

Servant and master changed places, and Far- 
quhar in his turn scrutinised the features of 
John Smith. He moved the stained handker- 
chief, sniffed at his lips, laid a finger on the spot 
where the pulse should ha\e beaten, and then 
stood up. 

“Shift the seat as far forward as it ’ll go. 
Yes ; now put the cushions in the bottom of the 
cart. The rug over them. Is the back let 
down? That’s right.” He picked up John 
Smith and shouldered him as if he were a gun. 
The luckless artist in words weighed less than 
eight stone, but the strength required to lift 
him so easily was very great, and was shown 
more remarkably still when Farquhar raised 
him up at arm’s-length to put him into the dog- 
cart. Simpson lent his assistance, protesting 
only by silence against the introduction of a 
drunken and excessively muddy prodigal be- 
tween the folds of the new carriage-rug. His 
discretion was rewarded by his master, who 
12 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


explained, as he took his seat again and picked 
up the reins: “ It’s a case of illness, poor chap. 
The man’s not drunk.” 

“Very good, sir,” said Simpson, touching his 
cap; but he did not believe it. Even the ir- 
reproachable Mr. Farquhar was no hero to his 
groom. 

About a mile beyond the arch Simpson had 
to get down to open a gate, and the dog-cart 
drew up at the front door of The Lilacs, which 
was the pleasing name of Farquhar’ s bachelor 
residence. It was a large modern villa built 
of red brick and white stucco, boasting Eliza- 
bethan mullioned windows on the first floor, 
modem bays below, a castellated turret, and a 
Byzantine porch with a cupola, which tasteful 
decorations the offlcious ivy had done its best 
to veil. Inside, the house was furnished well 
and, before all things, comfortably ; it was heated 
by an arrangement of hot-air pipes in the Rus- 
sian fashion, and cooled in summer by genuine 
punkahs. John Smith was carried in and laid 
before the library fire; Simpson was sent to 
fetch the doctor, and the master of the house 
himself attended on the muddy stranger. Far- 
quhar was a wonderfully good Good Samari- 
tan. 

He began by stripping off John Smith’s wet 
clothes, noting that the shirt, which had seen 

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LOVE IN CHIEF 


its best and almost its worst days, was neatly 
marked in a woman’s writing with the name of 
Lucian de Saurnarez. His other garments, 
which were in better condition, bore only the 
red cotton hieroglyphics of the laundress. Few 
people could have excelled Lucian de Saurnarez 
in the art of dressing badly ; his hat alone would 
have roused envy in a scarecrow. Farquhar 
did not dare to give him brandy, but he began 
to practise a remedy potent as alcohol and safer. 
Kneeling beside the parchment-covered artic- 
ulated skeleton on the sofa, he ran his fingers 
over him with subtle, measured movements, 
unpleasantly suggestive of the coiling and un- 
coiling of a snake. He had learned the art 
of massage among strange people in a strange 
land; it seemed literally to recall the spirit to 
the body it had quitted. 

Lucian de Saurnarez became conscious of ex- 
istence in a tingling thrill of warmth which crept 
all over his frame. The return to life was ex- 
quisitely delicious; a deep peace rapt him far 
out of reach of pain, and his mental faculties 
came back one by one while yet his bodily sense 
was drowned in dreams. But, suddenly, he was 
aware of a change, the truth being that Far- 
quhar had paused in his task. Vague discom- 
fort followed ; then he opened his eyes and saw, 
as a vignette beyond a tunnel of darkness, the 

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LOVE IN CHIEF 


face of a man reading a letter. That letter, 
written by a woman’s hand on thick blue pa- 
per with a gilded monogram, was familiar to 
Lucian ; it was the same which he for nine years 
had carried close to his heart. Without wonder 
he saw the dream-stranger turn the page and 
read to the end, he watched him fold it up and 
put it back in its place; and then the trance 
reabsorbed him, and again he revelled in deli- 
cious dreams under the magic touch of Noel 
Farquhar. Some minutes later he came to 
himself completely, and discovered what was 
being done to his unconscious frame. Lucian 
looked on massage as first cousin to hypnotism, 
and hated both, with all the lively independence 
of a character which could not bear to place it- 
self, even voluntarily, even for a moment, at 
the mercy of another man’s will. Prepared 
with a strong protest, he opened his eyes and 
was struck dumb. In the open English face of 
Noel Farquhar he recognized the dream- vision 
who had read his letter. 

“Ah, you’ve come to yourself,” said Far- 
quhar, pleasantly. “ You’re with friends ; don’t 
speak. The doctor will be here directly.” 

Lucian put up his eyebrows, sent his eyes 
straying round the room, and brought them 
back to his host’s face with an air of inquiry. 
Farquhar smiled. 


15 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


“How you came here? My horse shied at 
you and I picked you up. My name’s Far- 
quhar — Noel Farquhar.” 

“M. P. ?” said Lucian, who was by fits an 
ardent politician. 

“ Quite right. Can I communicate with your 
friends?” 

“ Don’t own any.” 

“ I hope you won’t say that long. Now you 
really must not talk any more ; I sha’n’t answer 
you if you do.” 

As he evidently meant to keep his word, 
Lucian subsided, and gave himself up to observ- 
ing. The room was conventionally furnished, 
but he saw on the floor the skin of a black pan- 
ther, and behind the door the nine-foot spiral 
ivory horn of a narwhal, trophies which even 
Whiteley cannot provide. Himself a wanderer, 
he rejoiced to see such tokens of his host’s pur- 
suits ; a sportsman is kin to a sportsman all the 
world over. From studying the furniture he 
turned to study Noel Farquhar. 

Most people knew the name of the member 
for Mid-Kent, and his face was tolerably famil- 
iar through the slanderous presentations which 
the papers call portraits. He had been in Par- 
liament for several years, and was supposed 
to be a coming man. When he got on his 
legs, members deferred their engagements; his 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


speeches were generally lively, always pithy, 
and never long, a trinity of virtues rare as the 
Christian graces, and, like them, culminating in 
the last. He had the advantage of a good voice 
and delivery. As a politician he was incorrupt- 
ible ; he would criticise his own party, when it 
seemed in danger of deviating from that ideal 
of rectitude which animates the bosom of every 
British statesman. A Bayard without fear or 
reproach, a high-souled patriot with a caustic 
tongue, he had a niche all to himself among 
parliamentary celebrities. 

He stood in his socks only five feet nine, but 
the width of his shoulders was exceptional, and 
his frame was lean and hard and supple as a 
panther’s. Every muscle had been trained and 
trained again to the pitch of excellency, and 
every movement had the sure grace of controlled 
strength. The comeliness of perfect health and 
physical fitness was his; he diffused a kind of 
tonic energy which acted on susceptible people 
almost like an electric current. For the rest, 
he was the typical Englishman: fair -haired, 
grey-eyed, sunburnt, pleasant, in spite of the 
grim curve of cheek and jaw, which matched 
the almost ominous strength of his physique. 
Lucian, like other people, would have accepted 
him for what he seemed, if he had not seen him 
deliberately reading through his love-letter. As 
17 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


it was, he looked into the fair, open face and 
knew him for a humbug; though he could not 
imagine why he should have read it, nor how 
it could advantage him to befriend a miserable, 
sordid, reprobate, and degraded outcast such as 
Lucian de Saumarez. 

Dr. Maude came hard on the heels of 
the returning Simpson ; he did not resort to 
Bob Sawyer’s tactics to increase the reputa- 
tion of his practice. Farquhar met him in 
the hall and brought him in, and the pa- 
tient overheard an edifying fragment of con- 
versation. 

“ Well, I couldn’t very well leave him out 
in the road, poor chap, so I had to bring him 
along.” 

“And he will probably recoup himself from 
your plate-chest.” 

“What a cynic you are! I never thought 
of such a thing,” said Farquhar, laughing. 

“Your innocence must stand in your way 
sometimes, I should think.” 

“ I never knew it do so. I believe, myself, 
that trust begets trustworthiness.” 

“Ah, you’re a philanthropist,” said Maude, 
walking into the room. The patient lay quiet, 
apparently unconscious. “I expected that it 
was this fellow you’d got hold of,” Maude said, 
without surprise. “He came to me an hour 


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LOVE IN CHIEF 


ago. I told him to go to Aires worth infirmary ; 
I suppose he had an attack while waiting for 
the ’bus.” 

“Well, I think you might have let him wait 
in the surgery.” 

“He’s probably a thief. I don’t profess to 
be a philanthropist, myself.” 

“Philanthropist, indeed!” said Farquhar. 
“It’s not philanthropy I’m feeling for you, 
doctor.” 

“I dare say,” Maude responded, proceeding 
with his analysis of Lucian’s bones. 

“You persist in crediting me with virtues I 
don’t possess.” 

“ Modesty’s your great fault ; every one knows 
that.” 

“Well, yours isn’t over-amiability, anyhow,” 
returned Farquhar, again laughing. 

Satirical compliments are more difficult to 
meet than most forms of attack, but Far- 
quhar’ s unconsciousness was ^ a perfect piece 
of acting. Lucian wondered whether Maude 
knew the motive of his philanthropy. As a fact, 
Maude knew nothing and suspected merely be- 
cause Farquhar was a virtuous person ; he would 
have believed that the Apostle Peter got him- 
self martyred for a consideration, and canon- 
ised by a piece of celestial jobbery. Being put 
to rebuke, he confined his conversation to the 

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LOVE IN CHIEF 

subject of Lucian’s illness, and in a short time 
the prodigal was installed in the best room 
and fed with the fatted calf under the form of 
tinned essence of beef. 


Ill 

THE PROPER STUDY OF MANKIND IS MAN 

F or several days Lucian was kept dumb by 
the tactics of his host, who walked punct- 
ually out of the room as soon as the invalid 
opened his lips. In half an hour he would re- 
turn to the chafing guest ; and then, if Lucian 
remained silent, he heard the paper read aloud, 
but if he dared to speak he was once more left 
to himself. As Lucian was eminently grega- 
rious and hated his own society, the discipline 
achieved its object. He was treated like a 
royal guest, and repaid his host by vivisecting 
his character. The ground of his suspicions 
seemed trivial, but was substantial. Feeling 
the letter in its old place, Lucian sometimes 
wondered if he had dreamed that scene. But, 
no, he knew it was real ; for the reason that he 
had seen on Farquhar’s face as he read an ex- 
pression which he could never have imagined. 
What he suspected was not very clear; but 
Lucian had an inquisitive disposition, and his 
21 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


interests at this time were limited in number. 
Hence his exaggerated curiosity. 

The church at Monkswell was heated by 
pipes which on mild days brought the tempera- 
ture up to seventy degrees Fahrenheit, and in 
cold weather left the air in such a condition 
that to uncover his bald head was a severe 
trial of the parson’s faith. The weather had 
changed, and Farquhar, coming in after ser- 
vice on Sunday afternoon, went straight to the 
fire to warm his hands. He was an exemplary 
church-goer. 

“Cold?” inquired Lucian, who was now al- 
lowed to talk a little. 

“Bitterly. The snow -wind’s blowing; we 
shall be white to-morrow, if I don’t err.” 

“ Gale at seventy miles an hour, temperature 
twenty degrees below zero; yes. I’ve tried that 
out in Athabasca, and it didn’t suit me,” said 
Lucian, whose rebellious body appreciated lux- 
ury though his hardy spirit despised it. 

“ My faith, no! but I’m not sure that twenty 
degrees below isn’t better than a hundred and 
twenty above.” 

“ That’s a nice preparation for the bad time 
coming,” said the incorrigible Lucian. “Talk- 
ing of which, what was that devilry you used 
when you carried in my fainting form?” 

“ Devilry, indeed! It was massage.” 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


“Not the ordinary, common or garden Eng- 
lish massage, sonny; I’ve tried that.” 

“ Massage is massage all the world over, I 
should have said. However, I learned mine 
in Africa.” 

“And who was your moonshee?” 

“An old Arab sheikh who wore immaculate 
robes, and carried a dagger with a handle of sil- 
ver filigree and a very sharp point, with which 
he prodded his slaves when they failed in their 
duties. Are you satisfied now?” 

“ No, not in the least; but I didn’t expect to 
be. Who’s old Fane?” 

“My dear fellow,” said Farquhar, mildly, 
“your mind reminds me of a flea. Mr. Fane 
is a farmer hereabouts, a kind of local squire.” 

“ Is he well off?” 

“ Tolerably, I believe. Why do you ask?” 

“Old curmudgeon!” said Lucian. “Stingy 
old miserly murderer!” 

“One at a time, I beg,” said Farquhar. 

“Well, he may be an angel incognito, but 
his war-paint’s unco guid, that’s all.” 

“ How has he roused your righteous wrath?” 

Lucian related Mrs. Searle’s story, waxing 
eloquent over her wrongs, and illustrating his 
points with rapid foreign gestures, as his man 
ner was. Farquhar compressed his lips, which 
already joined in a sufficiently firm line. “ I 
3 23 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


know those houses,” he said; “they are unfit 
for habitation. I tried to get them condemned 
a year ago. Want a copper, do they ? They’ll 
never get it from Fane.” 

“ I wish he’d tried what starvation’s like, 
that’s all.” 

“ Have you?” 

“Have I? I was a thousandaire till I was 
four-and- twenty,” said Lucian, clasping his 
lean, brown hands behind his head — “but since 
then, devil a penny have I had to spend ! My 
head is bloody but unbowed beneath the bludg- 
eonings of Fate — W. E. Henley. I’m proud to 
say I could take the shine out of Orestes.” 

Farquhar sat down by the fire and pulled the 
tea-table towards him. He was very useful 
at an afternoon party : could always remember 
the precise formula for every person’s several 
cup. “How did you lose your money?” he 
inquired, flavoring his own tea with lemon, in 
the Russian style. 

“Sixteen thousand in one night playing 
ecarte, sonny. No, don’t preach; I never gam- 
ble now I’ve got no money. Besides, on that 
memorable occasion my circumstances were ex- 
ceptional.” 

“ Exceptionally bad, I should think. What 
did you do?” 

“ What did I do ? Commenced author, and 
24 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


I flatter myself I should have made a decided 
hit, only I was overtaken by what another 
distinguished author calls Bluidy Jack. The 
medico swore it was the writing brought it on. 
I also swore, in many tongues, and had a second 
go; I held on gallantly for three months, and 
then went to a hospital, and a nurse fell in love 
with me. ‘Those lips so sweet, so honey- 
sweet — ’ We swore fidelity. I shared with her 
my fortune — we broke a sixpence. She had 
three hundred a year and a large soul. In- 
constant creature! On getting my ticket-of- 
leave from the hospital I introduced her to my 
chief pal ; and would you believe it ? the base 
villain borrowed my first fiver to elope with 
her with.” 

“Good Heavens, de Saumarez!” said Far- 
quhar, laughing against his will, “you don’t 
mean to tell me that all this is true?” 

“True? True? Every blessed word of it. 
I then tried to ’list, but couldn’t pass the medi- 
cal. So I got another pal and started as a 
tomato- johnny in Guernsey. We’re Guernsey 
people, you know,” he added, his voice taking 
a different intonation. “ I’ve a certain affection 
for it, too; there I’ll hope to lay these carious 
old bones of mine when I’ve done with them. 
Mighty poor crops they’ll make, too. Well, I 
thought Guernsey, being my own, my native 

25 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


land, might be a sort of all-inclusive mascot for 
me. But, Lord bless you, sonny, it rained 
thunderbolts! Give you my word, no sooner 
were our glass-houses up than there arrived a 
record showier of aerolites ; sticky, shiny, black 
things they were, for all the world like liquorice. 
Two-thirds of the panes went. As I didn’t 
want to wreck the bosom friend’s boat, we 
dissolved partnership, and Jonah went off on 
his own.” 

Farquhar could himself corroborate this 
story; he remembered the meteoric shower, 
which had attracted some attention. 

” The stars in their courses came out of them 
to fight against me, you see. Well, I went 
back to town and^held horses. I fared sumpt- 
uously every day at coffee-stalls, or at Lock- 
hart’s when I was in funds. I draw a veil over 
this period. I was submerged. Then, in hos- 
pital, I met a very decent fellow who got me a 
berth in Miss Inez Montroni’s travelling com- 
pany, where I lived gaily on a pound a week 
till that memorable Sawbath which I broke by 
knocking up. I was discovered by a kind an- 
gel: adsum. Are you insured against fire?” 

“Oh, I’m not afraid of ill-luck!” said Far- 
quhar. 

“Aren’t you, now? I detect a kind qf arro- 
gance, a sort of healthy scepticism in your tone, 
26 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


my friend. I wonder what you are afraid of? 
Not much, I guess.” 

“Was your ill-health hereditary?” asked 
Farquhar, who as a temperance advocate 
studied the question of transmission. 

“Don’t know. My parents died ere I was 
born, and never saw their son, you see. I in- 
herited my bad luck, anyway. 

‘ Oh, Keith of Ravelston, 

The sorrows of thy line!’ ” 

“ It hasn’t depressed your spirits.” 

“ Oh, I don’t believe in letting trouble beat 
you.” 

“You talk as though trouble were a living 
personality.” 

“So it is; a force inimical, to be conquered, 
held down, and trampled into the earth.” 

“ I don’t see how you’re going to conquer 
trouble. It has its way, and that’s all.” 

“ It’s not all. Trouble will make a man de- 
spair, or drink, or gamble, or go mad, or may- 
be even shoot himself. Well, I’d defy it to 
make me deflect a hair’s-breadth from myself, 
come all the shafts of fate. As long as I’ve 
lips I’ll grin.” 

“That’s how you take things?” said Far- 
quhar. “Well, it’s not my way.” His face 
27 


LOVE IN CHIEE 


lighted up with a heady defiance, his lips shut 
in a straight line, his eyes sparkled with quite 
unregenerate fire. 

“What is your way, then?” 

Farquhar’s expression went instantly out, 
and he lowered his eyelids. “Well, you know, 
things are different for you and me,” he said, 
diffidently. “I’m lucky in having a religious 
faith to fall back on.” 

“Oh, I do like you!” said Lucian, after a few 
seconds, smitten with an admiration which was 
not wholly admirable. He solemnly stretched 
out his hand. “Sonny, you’re a great man,” 
he declared. “I wish I had your cheek. 
Shake!” 

Farquhar smiled politely, deprecated the 
compliment, and evaded the point at issue; 
and shortly afterwards conveyed himself out 
of the room on the plea that the invalid had 
done enough talking. It was fortunate for him 
that the language of the eye cannot be put in as 
evidence, for Lucian knew that he had detected, 
in Farquhar’ s too candid orbs, a tacit acknowl- 
edgment of all the deceit wherewith he was de- 
sirous of charging him. 

Next morning in country and city men awoke 
to a white, silent world under a dome of blue, 
immaculate sky. There was no wind ; and the 
breath of horse and rider hung still in the air 
28 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


after Noel Farquhar as he rode up to Burnt 
House. A huge sweep of bare, white country- 
lay outspread, sparkling in the sun ; the hedges 
were so thickly thatched with snow that they 
did not break the even whiteness of the prospect. 
The miserable little group of black, wooden cot- 
tages, Farquhar’s goal, was discernible a great 
way off; they were so lonely that when Far- 
quhar rode back an hour later only his own 
tracks, black where the crushed snow had 
melted, confronted him upon the road. 

The day passed, and several beside, and a 
week later the soiled rags of the snow still lin- 
gered under hedges and by tussocks in the fields 
when Farquhar took another morning ride, 
this time in the direction of Fanes. The house 
lay low ; its E-shaped facade, built of bright-red 
brick and ornamented with facings of free- 
stone, and with diagonal bands of dark brown 
crossing one another, looked across shaven lawns 
and wide gravel paths to a stream formally 
laid out with cascades and little islands, in 
summer bright with roses. Some noble trees 
sprang from the lawn; in particular, a most 
beautiful silver birch, whose slight, tapering 
branches sustained a colony of ragged black 
blots, which were the nests of the rooks of Fanes. 
The birds took toll from all the orchards around, 
and were almost as well hated as their owners. 

29 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


Mr. Fane had a thin, tall figure, with stoop- 
ing shoulders and forward-thrusting head. A 
pair of keen, cold eyes looked suspiciously forth 
from under penthouse brows ; self-sufficiency had 
compressed his lips, selfish study had hollowed 
his cheeks, and his thin, even voice, precise in 
enunciation even to pedantry, was the true in- 
dex of a steadfastly un amiable character. The 
Fanes enjoyed great unpopularity; father, son, 
and daughter, they were all shunned like lepers. 
Old Fane had married abroad ; no one heard his 
wife’s maiden name, and when he came back 
as a widower nobody cared to ask. The two 
children grew up as they would. The son, 
Bernard, was notoriously a poacher; the daugh- 
ter was a beauty, a wild rider, untutored and 
untamed, and shared, so it was said, her broth- 
er’s heinous crimes in the preserves. It was this 
business which shut off the young Fanes from 
the society of their peers. Once in past years 
they had made their appearance at the first 
meet of the season, but they never went again ; 
and thenceforward avoided society more scru- 
pulously than society avoided them. ’ 

All this happened before Noel Farquhar came 
to The Lilacs. He had more than once tried 
to make friends with young Fane, and had been 
snubbed for his pains; and thus to this hour 
matters stood. Nobody knew much about 
30 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


them, but they possessed a fearsome reputa- 
tion, which caused nervous ladies to skip 
nimbly over fences when they saw Ber- 
nard Fane approaching on his big black 
horse. 

Eumenes Fane received in his library, a long, 
low room walled with books. One case held 
tier on tier of novels in their native French, 
both old and new; another was devoted to 
theology, and put a row of Blair’s most un- 
christian sermons across the middle shelf as a 
gilded breastplate against the assaults of mod- 
em heresies. Mr. Fane was a ferocious Calvin- 
ist ; he felt it his duty to go in for hell, and wish- 
ed to exact consent in the same beliefs from his 
children, his servants, and in ever-widening cir- 
cles from the ends of the earth. Over the man- 
tel hung an interesting old design in black and 
white, which represented the Last Day : a small 
queue of saints in stained -glass attitudes as- 
cending the celestial mountains under the con- 
voy of woolly angels, a large corps of sinners 
being haled out of their tombs by demons 
armed with three-pronged spears, which they 
used as toasting-forks. His Satanic Majesty 
was gleefully directing their operations, amid 
tongues of realistic flame. On the card-board 
mount of the picture the following verse was 
inscribed in youthful round-hand : 

31 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


Perdition is needful; beyond any doubt 

Hell fire is a thing that we can't do ivithout. 

Saltpetre and pitchforks with brimstone and coals 

Are arguments new to rescue men's souls. 

We must keep it up, if we like it or not, 

And make it eternal, and make it red-hot. 

Mirabelle Fane. 

The signature seemed to indicate . that Mr. 
Fane was not always implicitly obeyed by his 
children. 

He remained sitting when Farquhar was an- 
nounced, and looked as forbidding as possible. 
Farquhar bowed, and looked as pleasant as 
possible. The interview promised to be un- 
conventional. 

“You are Noel Farquhar?’' 

“That’s my name, sir,” said Farquhar, al- 
ways particularly respectful to an elderly man. 

“You write to me that you have made some 
alterations in my cottages at Burnt House,” 
continued old Fane, referring to a letter in his 
hand. 

“ I have, sir; and I hope you will forgive my 
officiousness in acting without your leave.” 

“ I understand that you have put in a cop- 
per.” 

“It hasn’t damaged the property; I’ll an- 
swer for that ; and it was pretty badly wanted. 
If you’d looked at the place yourself — ” 

32 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


“ Where is the copper set ?” 

“ As a lean-to on the last house.” 

“What are the dimensions?” 

Farquhar supplied him with precise partic- 
ulars. “ I happened to hear the story from 
one of your tenants, and I ordered the thing 
at once, without a thought of the landlord’s 
right in the matter. When I did remember, it 
was too late; the work was begun. I can as- 
sure you, sir, that it actually adds to the value 
of the property.” 

“ So I supposed. What should you say at 
a guess is the rental worth of the improve- 
ment ?” 

“Oh, something very small; not more than 
sixpence a week, sir.” 

Mr. Fane made an entry in his book. “ Thank 
you; I am much obliged to you. Good-mom- 
ing.” 

“You’ll overlook my indiscretion?” 

“Overlook it? Indiscretion? I am a poor 
man, and you have put into my pocket three 
shillings a week, Mr. Farquhar; I am greatly 
indebted to you.” 

“ I have put into your pocket three shillings 
a week?” 

“The additional rent of the six houses, you 
understand.” 

“You mean to raise the rent?” 

33 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


“ Certainly. Indiscriminate charity is against 
my principles.” 

“ But, sir, they’ll never be able to pay it.” 

“ I shall, I hope, find other tenants who 
will.” 

“And the charity is mine, Mr. Fane.” 

“And the houses are mine, Mr. Farquhar. 
Would you be so good as to let yourself out? 
The men are out on the farm. You cannot 
well miss your way.” 

Farquhar took up his hat and retired. He 
really could not attempt to argue the matter, 
and was aware that he had been neatly out- 
witted. So great a philanthropist should have 
been saddened by thoughts of the Searles, vic- 
tims of his blunder; but Noel Farquhar, as he 
walked down the hall, was smiling, in candid 
appreciation of the nice precision of his defeat. 


IV 


MY ACTIONS ALWAYS HARMONISED 
WITH MY OWN SWEET VOLITION; 

I ALWAYS DID WHAT I DEVISED 
AND RARELY ASKED PERMISSION. 

E re he was able to let himself out, how- 
ever, he was recalled. 

“Mr. Noel Farquhar!” 

Farquhar turned, and saw on the stairs a girl 
with a small head and a crown of chestnut hair. 
She came leisurely down with her hand on the 
balustrade, planting each foot lightly but with 
decision ; her gait was very characteristic. The 
light was from behind and left her features 
dark. When she had reached the hall, “ I 
want to speak to you,” said she, calmly ; “ please 
to come in here.” 

Farquhar held his peace and followed her 
into another low room, littered with more books 
and with Miss Fane’s somewhat masculine ap- 
purtenances — a pair of dogskin gloves, a hard 
felt hat, and a riding- whip among them. Ar- 
morial bearings were carved upon the lintel and 
35 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


traced again in silver upon the uprights of the 
andirons, across which logs were lying, in prim- 
itive style. The girl went first to the fire and 
stooped to warm her hands before she con- 
fronted him. 

“ Have you been talking to my father?” 

“Am I speaking to Miss Fane?” 

“ Of course; why do you ask such a question 
as that?” 

“Because I really was not sure; I thought 
you were younger.” 

“ Most people know us by sight, though we 
are too wicked to be received,” returned Miss 
Fane, indifferently. “ I don’t know whether 
you mistook me for a servant. However, that 
doesn’t matter ; have you been speaking to my 
father?” 

“ I came by appointment on a business mat- 
ter, Miss Fane.” 

“About those cottages at Burnt House. You 
should have written to my brother Bernard ; he 
manages the farm, and he is reasonable to deal 
with. Does my father mean to raise the rents ?’ ’ 

“ He said such was his intention, but I hope 
he will think better of it.” 

“Oh no, he won’t. Are you going to ac- 
quiesce, and let your proteges be evicted?” 

“ I can hardly make Mr. Fane lower the rents, 
can I?” 


36 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


“ You could make up the difference yourself.” 

As this was precisely what Farquhar had 
determined to do, he was, of course, struck by 
her intelligence. But he did his alms in mod- 
est secrecy. “ I dare say they will find the ex- 
tra sixpence,” he said. 

“They can’t. Searle drinks, and the others 
are as bad, or worse. They’re helpless.” 

Farquhar did not answer her. She had just 
moved into the sunlight, and he was startled 
by her beauty. No flower-loveliness was hers, 
delicate and evanescent ; she glowed like a jewel 
with colour, the brighter for the sunlight which 
illumined the rich damask of her cheeks, the 
rich whiteness of her brow, the rich hazel of her 
eyes, the rich chestnut of her hair. Dolly Fane 
possessed in its full splendour the misnamed 
devil’s beauty, the beauty of colour, vitality, 
youth. Her lips were virginally severe, her 
figure slight, girlishly formed, not yet mature; 
she was not so old, nor yet so self-possessed, as 
she wished to appear. 

“ Well, if you are giving in there is no more 
to be said,” she added, with a slight contempt- 
uous movement which was plainly a prelude 
to showing him out. 

Farquhar hastily cast to the winds his mod- 
est reserve. “I am not giving in; I do mean 
to make up the difference,” he said. 

" 37 


LOVE IN CHIEF 

“You do?” said Dolly, fastening her eyes 
upon him. 

“You’re very charitable, Miss Fane,” said 
Farquhar, smiling. 

“Not in the least. I am sorry for Mrs. 
Searle; but I did not ask you for that reason. 
I wanted to see what you are like. You’ve 
spoken to my brother Bernard once or twice, 
haven’t you?” 

“I have; but he did not seem interested in 
my conversation.” 

“ Oh, that’s Bernard’s way; he always thinks 
people mean to patronise him. You know 
London well, don’t you?” 

“I’ve lived a good deal in town, certainly.” 

“Should I pass muster in society?” 

“Pass muster?” Farquhar repeated. It was 
not easy to abash him, but this young beauty, 
with her odd questions, contrived to do it. 

“Yes. I know I am behaving in an unusual 
way now, but have I the accent and the ap- 
pearance of a lady?” 

“ Most certainly you have.” 

“Do you think so? Should I get on in 
town? Do you think I am sufficiently pre- 
sentable to be an actress?” 

“An actress? Yes, I should say you were.” 

“You’ve not seen me act, of course; I can 
do it. And I’ve a passable voice, and I’m 
38 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


fairly good-looking. Books say that theatre- 
goers will put up with poor acting for the sake 
of a pretty face; is that true?” 

“It depends on the prettiness of the face. 
It would be true in your case.” 

“ I don’t in the least want compliments. I 
want the plain truth.” 

“And I’m giving it.” 

“Oh,” said Dolly, evidently disconcerted. 
He had checked her for the minute, and she 
remained silent, though fresh questions were 
at her very lips. 

“Are you fond of acting?” Farquhar asked, 
to loosen her tongue. “Are you burning to 
play Juliet?” 

“Juliet? Oh no! I’d like to be Cleopatra 
or Lady Macbeth, though. Some one power- 
ful and perhaps wicked ; but not like La Dame 
aux Camelias, or Iris, or Agnes Ebbsmith. If 
I threw the Bible in the fire, I should keep it 
there.” 

“And make it eternal, and make it red-hot,” 
suggested Farquhar. 

“Did you read those lines? Aren’t they 
good? Years ago I wrote them there, and 
father never could make me rub them out, 
though he tried with his riding- whip. But that 
wouldn’t interest you. . On your honour, do 
you think I should have a chance on the stage ?” 

4 39 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


“ On my honour, I do. But why do you want 
to go ? I should have thought you’d too much 
sense to be stage-struck.” 

“I’m not stage-struck, but I want to leave 
this place, and that seems the simplest way. 
We are badly off. I never see any one except 
my brother. I do not know how to behave. 
I have never had the chance of speaking to a 
gentleman before: which was why I called you 
in and asked you these questions. I expect no 
girl you know would have done it, would she?” 

“You’re right — she wouldn’t; the more fool 
vshe, if she wanted the answer as badly as you 
did.” 

“Exactly,” said Dolly; “for, after all, it 
doesn’t matter what you think of me.” 

Farquhar slightly altered his whole bearing. 
He leaned against the chimney-piece and look- 
ed her in the face. “ My opinion does matter, 
you know,” he said. “I’ve some influence, 
which I could use either to promote or to frus- 
trate your interests. I know plenty managers, 
and so forth, and I’m popular.” 

“ It does not matter,” Dolly corrected swiftly ; 
“for I would under no circumstances consent 
to be beholden to you for anything beyond the 
piece of truth you’ve already given me.” 

“You’re independent.” 

“I hope so.” 


40 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


“I’d much like to teach you to obey.” 

“ Mathematicians have always wanted to 
square the circle.” 

“You’ve a will of your own; you’re worth 
talking to.” 

“Is this how a gentleman speaks to a lady?” 

“No, it’s how a man speaks to a woman.” 

Dolly glanced out of the window. “That’s 
my brother Bernard with his dogs. He stands 
six foot three, and he’s the best wrestler in 
Kent.” 

“Meaning you’d set him to turn me out? 
He’d never do it.” 

“ Do you think you’re as strong as Bernard ?” 

“Stronger,” answered Farquhar, stretching 
out his arm. Pride of strength was in that 
gesture, and more than pride — arrogance. 

Dolly had a primitive admiration for strength, 
and his self-confidence tingled through her 
veins. She liked him the better that he was 
dangerous to handle ; she was more at her ease 
that they were outside convention. 

“At least, you’re not stronger than Bernard 
plus half a dozen men whom I could call in a 
minute,” she remarked, evenly. “Wouldn’t it 
be wiser to make no fuss, but go ?” 

Farquhar started, passed his hand across his 
eyes, and looked at her earnestly, as though 
her words had wakened him. “Miss Fane, I 

41 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


believe Fve been saying the most outrageous 
things!” he exclaimed. “Haven’t I? I don’t 
know what possessed me. What have I said ?” 

“A little harmless nonsense, that’s all,” 
Dolly assured him. 

I must ask you to forgive me. To tell the 
truth, I’d a touch of sunstroke out in Africa, 
and since then I’m not my own master at times. 
I’m literally out of my wits. I don’t know 
what I’ve said, but nothing was farther from 
my mind than any rudeness to you — to any 
lady. You will believe that ?” 

‘ ‘ Perhaps. Good-bye. ’ ’ 

“You won’t punish me by declining to speak 
to me?” 

“We aren’t likely to meet. Your friends 
don’t know me.” 

“ We shall meet, if you allow it. Will you ?” 

“Will I, now?” said Dolly. She went and 
threw open the door. “Good-morning.” 

Farquhar pleaded, but his words were wasted. 
Not a word more would Miss Fane say, and at 
last he took up his hat and walked out. 

When she had watched him out of sight, Dolly 
went bareheaded across the lawn to a tool-shed 
under the trees, round which circled a numer- 
ous company of dogs, ranging from a smart 
terrier up to a huge grave brute, half blood- 
hound, half Great Dane, of the breed which 
42 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


Virginian planters used in the good old days for 
tracking down their runaway slaves. Within, 
Dolly found the tall young fellow whom she had 
pointed out to Farquhar. He was darker than 
his sister, and not so handsome, but the two, 
were plainly slips of the same tree. Bernard’s 
manners needed attention. When his sister ap- 
peared he did not lay down his saw, which pro- 
duced an ear-piercing rasping and ratchmg such 
as denied conversation. Dolly put her hand 
on his and arrested his work by force. 

“ Well, what did that chap Farquhar want?” 
asked Bernard, without resentment. 

Dolly related Farquhar’ s doings at Burnt 
House, and the sequel. Bernard’s comment 
was: “ I guess he must be an ass,” and he took 
up his saw to resume work, but was once more 
summarily stopped by his sister. These inci- 
dents were stages in the conversation ; as peo- 
ple of quick wits often do when they live to- 
gether, these two were in the habit of expressing 
themselves by signs. 

” He’s going to pay the difference himself, and 
not let father know,” Dolly explained. 

“ Then I guess he’s only a soft. But how did 
you hear?” 

” I called him into the parlour and asked. I 
asked him whether I should succeed on the 
stage.” 


43 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


A pause, during which Bernard framed, and 
discarded as useless, a reproof. “What did 
he say?” 

“ He said I should.” 

“ I don’t see you can count that. I guess it 
wouldn’t be good manners for him to tell you 
you wouldn’t.” 

“ He did mean it. He wasn’t particularly 
polite.” 

“What did he do?” 

“Oh, nothing actually rude. It was odd,” 
said Dolly, reflectively. “At first he was — 
oh, Beriiard, you know what I mean: turned 
out on a pattern and polished, like all the other 
gentlemen we’ve seen. I was rather nervous; 
but I meant to go through with it. Then his 
manner seemed to break in half. He was al- 
most brutal. I must say I rather liked that; 
it was raw nature. And quite at the end he 
apologised, and said that he’d had sunstroke 
in Africa. Do you think that likely to be 
true?” 

“I couldn’t say,” said Bernard. “I know 
he’s been in Africa.” 

“What! out at the front? How painfully 
ordinary!” 

“You do it very well,” said Bernard, with 
admiration. “That was just like the woman 
in the black frills at Merton’s. You’d soon be 
44 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


as good as they are. Farquhar wasn’t volun- 
teering, though ; he was up farther north, where 
they get miasma.” 

“Oh,” said Dolly, leaning her elbows on the 
bench and her chin on her clasped hands. 
“Do you like him, Bemie?” 

“Not if he was rude to you; though I guess 
swells generally are cads, like in books.” 

“He wasn’t exactly rude. He was primi- 
tive. I should say he was very strong, and 
rather wicked, and subtle ; not like us. We’re 
quite simple, simplex, one-fold ; we mean what 
we say and do what we mean, you and I.” 

“I should hope so,” said Bernard, who was 
not troubled by uncertain ethics. 

“Noel Farquhar doesn’t, then; I’m sure of 
it. He is very strong. He says he is stronger 
than you are.” 

Bernard stretched out a brawny arm. “ He’s 
six inches shorter, anyway. At that rate he’d 
have to be a Hercules to lick me.” 

“I’d like you to wrestle with him. I’d like 
to see him thrown.” 

“Hullo, Dolly!” 

“And I mean to meet him again.” 

“ I know that isn’t the proper thing. You 
ought to get introduced. first.” 

“I can take care of myself. He interests 

yt 

me. 


45 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


“You’ll be falling in love with him if you 
don’t look out.’’ 

“That I never should do. But he might 
fall in love with me.” 

“ Shouldn’t think that was likely.” 

“Why not? We Fanes are as good a family 
as any in England. And I’m handsome: Ber- 
nard, you said I was.” 

“Yes, but you aren’t like the woman in the 
black frills,” said Bernard, measuring his sister 
by the only standard of taste he knew. “ Be- 
sides, I guess Merton’s morally sure you were 
out poaching last time with me, and he and 
Farquhar are as thick as thieves. Girls oughtn’t 
to poach.” 

“There are some people who don’t class 
that among the seven deadly sins, and he’s 
one; I know it. He has wild blood, as we 
have.” 

“ But would you marry him if he wanted 
you to?” 

“I’m not sure. I might. He could give 
me what I want — experience.” 

“ I don’t see why you aren’t contented here,” 
said Bernard, bending to his work again. 

“I dare say not,” retorted Dolly, pacing the 
shed. “You’re phlegmatic You’re content 
with the rind of life. Bitter or sweet, I mean 
to taste the core.” 


46 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


“I expect, you know, you’ll come to awful 
grief.” 

“ Perhaps. But so I’ve lived my life first. 
I’ll not complain.” 

“Well,” said Bernard, “I never saw you in 
heroics before, and I guess I don’t care if I 
never do again.” 

Then he returned to his work, and drowned 
Dolly’s aspirations in the harsh duet of squeak- 
ing saw and dissentient wood. 


V 


SHE GOES ON SUNDAY TO THE CHURCH 

E UMENES FANE’S marriage had been both 
more respectable and more romantic than 
his kind enemies believed: living in Paris, he 
had eloped with a handsome, wilful French girl 
of noble family. Her relations swallowed the 
match as a bitter pill, his did not exist; and 
the married lovers lived in isolation far away 
in Brittany until death cut short their long 
honeymoon. Eumenes returned to England 
embittered; he had always been disagreeable. 
The relations between him and his children 
were eccentric. He lived with them, he had 
taught them, yet he lavished satire upon their 
boorishness and stupidity ; he had been devoted 
to the mother, yet for the children he had no 
feeling but unamiable contempt. They, on 
their part, repaid him with indifference. Ber- 
nard at eighteen, on his own initiative, took 
control of the farm and made it pay; Dolly 
managed the dairy and the household. Their 
lives were isolated equally from their father 
48 


LOVE IN CHIEF 

and from the world. Bernard was not much 
of a reader, and never strayed far from his 
Shakespeare and his farming journals, with 
excursions into Tennyson; but Dolly was in- 
satiable. She had read and digested every 
book in their heterogeneous library. Unfort- 
unately, the collection was not representative ; 
the modern French novelists were there ar- 
ranged in full tale, and fresh volumes were add- 
ed as they appeared, but it had no single work 
of English fiction later than the date of the ad- 
mirable Sir Charles Grandison. Both Bernard 
and Dolly could read and speak French as easi- 
ly as English, though they did not know the 
worth of their accomplishment ; and from their 
study of fin-de-siecle literature they had gained 
an innocently lurid knowledge of the world 
which hardly fitted in with the conditions of 
English country life, and was particularly in- 
appropriate as applied to the blameless house- 
holds at the vicarage, the surgery, or The Lilacs. 
When young Merton of The Hall brought home 
a pretty bride, Dolly seriously looked for the 
appearance of Tertium Quid. He delayed his 
coming for a year, and then arrived in the 
cradle. Dolly was surprised ; but she ascribed 
this breach of custom to the fact that Merton 
senior’s money was made in soap. Only the 
true aristocrats indulge in a friend of the house. 

49 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


After Farquhar’s visit Dolly made a dress 
for herself. It was then the fashion to wear 
a bodice opening at the sleeves and in front to 
show a lighter under-dress, which also appeared 
beneath the skirt, as the corolla of a flower be- 
neath the cal3rx. Dolly’s gown of dark chest- 
nut matched her hair ; the colour of the vest was 
white. She was more skilful in the dairy than 
with her needle, but she gave her mind to this, 
and in the end her work was crowned with fair 
success. 

“ I guess that colour, what they call, suits 
you,” said Bernard, whom she called in to as- 
sist at the full-dress rehearsal. 

“I expect it does,” assented Dolly, bending 
back her swan’s-neck to catch a glimpse of her 
supple young waist in the spotty mirror. “It 
fits rather badly ; any one can see it is home- 
made, but that can’t be helped. I am going 
to wear it to church on Christmas Day.” 

“Father ’ll be awfully angry if you go to 
church.” 

“Of course, but that doesn’t matter. No 
one except small shopkeepers and mill -girls 
goes to chapel now. Besides, the minister 
drops his h’s and mixes his metaphors and 
talks the silliest nonsense: I w'ouldn’t listen to 
him even if it were the fashion. Shall you 
come with me?” 


50 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


“ I guess I’d better. Have you seen that 
Farquhar chap again?” 

“I have,” Dolly answered, composedly. 

“You’ll get yourself into a mess if you don’t 
look out.” 

“ Oh no. He may get into a mess, but I shall 
not.” 

“Then I don’t think you are playing fair.” 

“Yes, I am. He knows why I spoke to 
him.” 

“Why did you?” 

“To know how ladies behave.” 

“I suppose you’ll go your own way,” said 
Bernard, after a pause; “but people ’ll talk if 
you go on meeting him.” 

“Let them. I don’t mean to stay down 
here.” 

“ I do,” said Bernard. 

Dolly perceived the force of this objection. 
She valued Farquhar’ s advice; but where her 
own aims clashed with Bernard’s well-being, 
she rarely hesitated. 

“Very well; I won’t meet him again,” she 
said. “ But, Bernard, if he speaks to you, do 
you respond. Ask him here; no one can find 
fault if I see him in my own house. Or I 
don’t think they can; do you?” 

She was reassured by Bernard’s hearty as- 
sent, backed by a special instance. “For,” 

51 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


said he, “when Maude had his sister staying 
here, Farquhar went and saw them; and I 
guess if he goes to Maude’s house he can come 
to us.” And the point was thus settled. 

Two days before Christmas the wind blew 
softly from the south, the snow melted from 
the earth and the clouds from the sky, the 
robins broke out into their pure celestial strains, 
and it was spring in all but name. Farquhar’ s 
invalid began to pester his doctor for permission 
to go out, and Dolly got a white hat to go with 
her chestnut gown 

Christmas Day itself was a flash of summer. 
Dolly came down dressed for church at half- 
past ten, and found her brother ready in a 
Norfolk jacket, knickerbockers, and a cap. 
An inward monitor told her that this attire 
was incorrect, and she said so ; but as Bernard 
had nothing else to v/ear, the question solvitur 
amhulando. 

Neither of them had ever been to church. 
In early days Bernard had been sent to a chapel 
with a damnatory creed, and he took his sister 
with him till she developed opinions of her 
own: an epoch early in Dolly’s history. She 
rebelled: Bernard, who was bored by the ser- 
vice, outraged by the music, and submissive 
only from indifference, supported her: and Mr. 
Fane’s graceless children took their own way, 

52 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


and henceforth spent the Sabbath hours in 
reading, prefaced always by a chapter of the 
Bible. 

They arrived late, having lingered in the 
woods because Dolly said, and Bernard agreed, 
that Mrs. Merton and the lady in the black 
frills had never entered the church till after 
the bells stopped ringing. Such is the force 
of bad example. Bernard held the door open 
for his sister, and followed her in, according to 
instructions which he had received from her, 
and she from Noel Farquhar. The aisles were 
crossed by dim sunbeams swimming with 
drowsy motes, the people were sleepy, the priest 
was monotoning monotonously out of tune ; and 
Dolly’s entrance, in company with a beam of 
pure sunshine and a gust of wind which set the 
Christmas wreaths rustling all round the church, 
electrified everybody. Heads turned to stare; 
the choristers, ever the devotees of inattention, 
nudged and whispered. Up the aisle came 
Dolly, a glowing piece of colour in her rich dress 
and richer hair, with the immaculate whiteness 
of her brow and the deepening carmine of her 
cheeks, her eyes shining like brown diamonds. 
She walked steadily, carrying her head high, 
up to the big square pew assigned by tradition 
to the house of Fanes, unlatched the door, and 
took her seat. Bernard followed, his height 
53 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


and his patent unconcern making his figure 
quite as imposing as hers. 

For a space Dolly knelt, as she saw others 
doing, and hid her hot face ; but when the time 
came she rose, and pinched Bernard, who had 
sat down and stayed there. He got up slowly, 
plunged his hands into his pockets, and looked 
round him. Dolly was convinced that his be- 
haviour was improper; she also looked round 
her, but without moving her head, and found 
her exemplar in the person of Noel Farquhar, 
who was attentively following the service in a 
large prayer-book. Three volumes lay on the 
shelf of their pew ; Dolly opened one and hand- 
ed another to her brother, signing to him to do 
his duty. He looked into it helplessly; it was 
a copy of Hymns Ancient and Modern, and it 
is not surprising that he could not find the 
place. Dolly was no better off, but she had a 
model to imitate; she turned over the pages as 
though they were perfectly familiar, found her 
place near the beginning of the volume, and 
devoutly studied the evening hymns while the 
choristers chanted the Venite. 

The recollection of that morning always 
brought a smile to Dolly’s lips. Occupied by 
her culte of deportment, and still more by her 
culte of Bernard’s deportment, she missed the 
humours at the moment, but found them all the 
54 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


more amusing under the enchantment lent by 
distance. Bernard, who was not thinking 
about himself, was not amused. Music at 
chapel had been bad enough, but this, more 
ambitious, was really horrible. The choir sang 
neither better nor worse than most village per- 
formers; there was a preponderance of trebles 
out of tune and raucous, an absence of altos, 
two tenors who sang wrong, and three basses 
who sang treble. When they should have mono- 
toned they climbed unevenly and one by one 
in linked sweetness long drawn out down a 
chromatic scale, until Bernard suddenly launch- 
ed the true note at them in a voice of startling 
richness and power, which would have made 
his fortune had he taken it to market in town. 
It had the true bass quality, but an unusually 
extensive compass, ranging from the C below 
the bass clef up to the octave of middle C. 

After he began to sing, most of the curious 
eyes were diverted from Dolly to him, and she 
regained her composure. Farquhar had not 
looked at her ; it was not his cue to let his eye 
wander during service. But Dolly was sure, 
from the dark flush which overspread his face, 
that he had seen her enter. She designed this 
meeting as a test. If he refused to acknowl- 
edge her before his friends, Dolly vowed that 
she would never speak to him again. Her 
55 


5 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


pride of birth was keen ; she went to the length 
of thinking her brother the only gentleman 
present, inasmuch as he alone, so far as she 
knew, had the right to bear arms. She took 
little part in the religious ceremonies. Dolly 
had her creed, and held to it in practice, but 
at this time she was too intent on this world to 
think much of the next. 

She got up with alacrity after the benedic- 
tion, and marshalled out Bernard, glad to go. 
The organist was now playing music soft and 
slow, and tenderly touching the pedals with 
boots so large that he frequently put down two 
notes at once by accident. Music was really 
the only subject about which Bernard was sen- 
sitive; as a false quantity to a Latinist, as a 
curse to a Quaker, as a red rag to a bull, so was 
a wrong note to Bernard Fane. 

Outside shone the sun and breathed the 
wind and danced the grasses over the graves 
of women as young and beautiful as Dolly; 
but she was not thinking of them. The stream 
of people began to condense into groups of two 
and three, who gave each other the accustomed 
greetings and echoed cheerful wishes at cross 
purpose in a babel of inanity. Farquhar was 
shaking hands with Mrs. Merton, a fragile little 
lady with dark eyes, frileuse, as Dolly christened 
her, who dressed very well and talked plaintive 
56 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


nonsense in an erratic fashion. Dolly knew by 
instinct that they were speaking of her. She 
went on at an even pace. Farquhar broke 
from his friends and followed, and Dolly, with 
true Christmas good-will in her heart, found 
herself shaking his hand in the overhand style, 
according to the custom of the lady in black 
frills. 

“ I wish I could walk home your way ; I’ve a 
hundred things to say about that Burnt House 
business, and one never has a chance of seeing 
Mr. Fane. But I’ve an invalid at home who’s 
to take his first airing to-day, and I know he’ll 
go too far if I don’t look after him.” 

“Is that the chap you picked up on the 
road ?” asked Bernard, who had heard the story 
from the men, with romantic embellishments. 

“ Oh, I didn’t pick him up ; don’t think it ; he 
was planted on me by Providence. I say. Fane, 
if you’ve nothing better to do, I wish you’d 
come in to-night and have a knock-up at bill- 
iards. It would be a Christian act, for I’ve 
not a soul in the house except the invalid, who 
toddles off to bye-bye at seven.” 

“ I can’t play billiards,” was Bernard’s reply, 
rather proudly spoken. 

“Right; I’ll teach you. There’s nothing 
I like better; is there, Mrs. Merton?” 

“Don’t ask me; I never pretend to fathom 

57 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


you,’' said Mrs. Merton, plaintively, shaking 
her head. And she put out a very small hand 
to Dolly. “Please don’t snub me. Miss Fane; 
I’d so like to come and call, if you’ll let me. 
I was told you were a dreadful person, who 
dropped the h and divided the hoof — skirt, I 
mean ; besides, it was your turn to call first on 
me. But you aren’t dreadful, are you? So 
may I come?’’ 

Had there been any patronage in Mrs. Mer- 
ton’s manner, Dolly would have been delighted 
to snub her; but there was none. The formula 
of gracious acceptance was less easy than a re- 
fusal, but Dolly let no one guess her difficulties. 
An interesting general discussion of the weather 
followed, during which one remarked that it 
gave the doctors quite a holiday, a second that 
it was muggy and unwholesome and why didn’t 
we have a nice healthy frost, a third that it was 
excellent for the crops, and a fourth that the 
harvest would be certainly ruined by wire- 
worms, and each agreed with all the rest. Ber- 
nard, standing still, thought fashionable people 
talked like imbeciles. Dolly, shy, though no 
one saw it, was in a glow of triumph. 

Their way home led through woods. So much 
rain had fallen that the mossy bridle-path was 
scored with deep ruts full of water, and Dolly 
had to hold her skirt away from the black leaf- 

58 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


mould. Rain -drops held in crumpled copper 
leaves shone gemlike, smooth young stems 
glistened; only the grey boles of the forest 
trees looked warm and dry. Dolly, herself 
like a russet leaf, harmonised with the wood- 
land scenery, which seemed a frame made for 
her. 

Farther on down the path, resignedly sitting 
on a bundle of fagots, and beginning to grow 
chilly, Lucian de Saumarez was waiting for 
some one to pass. He had set out with the 
virtuous intention of returning home in half 
an hour precisely, but had been lured on by 
a shrew-mouse, a squirrel, and the enchanting 
sun, till the end of his strength put a period to 
his walk; his legs gave way under him. Then 
he sat down and whistled “Just Break the 
News to Mother,” very cheerfully. It was 
fortunate that in Bernard’s hearing he did not 
attempt to sing, for his voice can only be de- 
scribed by the adjective squawky. He looked 
like a tramp who had stolen a coat, for over his 
own he wore one of Farquhar’s, which was 
truly a giant’s robe to him. At first glimpse 
of Dolly he whipped off his cap, and stood up 
bareheaded and recklessly polite. 

“Excuse me — ” he began. 

“ If you want relief, you’d better go to Aires- 
worth workhouse; they’ll take you in there,” 
59 


LOVE IN CHIEF 

interrupted Bernard, who would never give to 
tramps. 

“Be quiet, Bernard. Is there anything we 
can do for you?” asked Dolly, in her gentlest 
voice. 

“Candidly, I only ask an arm, and not an 
alms,” said Lucian, laughing in Bernard’s face. 
“Fact is. I’ve walked up from The Lilacs and 
just petered out. Your woods are such a very 
remarkably long way through.” 

‘ ‘ Then your name is De Saumarez. Bernard, 
give Mr. de Saumarez your arm. You must 
come home with us and rest; afterwards you 
can go back. You ought not to be sitting 
down out-of-doors this weather,” said Dolly, 
fixing her imperious young eyes upon him, be- 
tween pity and severity. 

“No, I’m an abomination, I confess it,” an- 
swered the culprit, meekly. 

“You must be feeling very tired.” 

“I’m feeling more like boned goose than 
anything else, especially in the legs. By-the- 
way, I wonder if Farquhar will leave his to 
look for the strayed lamb ?” 

“Let him; it won’t do him any harm.” 

Lucian’s eyes opened wide; Farquhar had 
described the ladies of Monkswell in picture- 
making phrases, and he was trying to fit this 
vivid young beauty into some one of the frames 
6o 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


provided, which all seemed too strait. “Am 
I speaking to Miss Maude?” he asked at a 
venture, choosing the likeliest. 

“Oh no. I am Mirabelle Fane, and this is 
my brother Bernard.” 

‘ ‘ The dickens you are !’ ’ said Lucian to himself ; 
for Farquhar, in relating the adventure of Mr. 
Fane and the copper, had not mentioned Miss 
Fane. Her foreign name and intonation caught 
Lucian’s ear, and he asked if she were French. 

“My mother was Comtesse de Beaufort,” 
Dolly told him, and her naive pride was quaint 
and pretty. Lucian mentioned Paris, and she 
fastened upon him with a string of eager ques- 
tions, but put him to silence before half were an- 
swered, by declaring that he had talked too 
much. 

“I’ve been off the silent list this fortnight 
past,” Lucian pleaded. 

“ But you are already overtired. You ought 
to lie down directly you get in, and take a dose 
of cod-liver oil.” 

“I take cod - liver oil three times a day,” 
Lucian assured her, with equal gravity. 

‘ ‘ How ? In port wine ?’ ’ 

“I should consider that a sacrilege. No; I 
will describe the operation,” said Lucian, warm- 
ing to his subject, which in any of his many con- 
versations with pretty girls he had never dis- 

6i 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


cussed before. “ I squeeze half a lemon into a 
wineglass, so ; then I pour the oil in on it ; next 
I squeeze the juice of the other half -lemon into 
another wineglass; and finally I swallow first 
the lemon plus oil and then the lemon solus. 
It is a process which requires great nicety 
and precision. Farquhar is not so careful as I 
could wish. Of course, it is nothing to hirri if 
I suffer.” 

“Port wine would be far more nourishing 
than lemon-juice,” Dolly asseverated, knitting 
her brows. “ Or milk would be better. Have 
you ever tried goat’s milk?” 

“ I have not ; is it a sovereign specific ?” 

“I have known it work wonderful cures on 
emaciated people. How much do you weigh ?” 

“Six stone eleven, I believe.” 

“That is far too little. You should test 
your weight every day — are you laughing at 
me?” 

“I’m awfully sorry!” said Lucian, who cer- 
tainly was. “But, Miss Fane, what a nurse 
you would make ! I was expecting you to feel 
my pulse, and take my temperature, and look 
at my tongue.” 

“So I was intending to do; I have a clinical 
thermometer at home,” Dolly proudly an- 
swered. “ I do not know how to behave. I 
have never learned any manners.” 

62 


LOVE IN CHIEF 

“Say you’ve never learned customs; man- 
ners come by nature.” 

Lucian’s smile was irresistible. 

“Mine come very badly, then,” said Dolly, 
smiling back at him ; ‘ ‘ for when we get in you 
will certainly have to lie down; and, what’s 
more, I shall give you a glass of goat’s milk.” 


VI 


HONESTY IS THE BEST POLICY 

A ROYAL stag, whose many-branched and 
palmate antlers showed that he had seen at 
least ten springs, looked down upon the mantel- 
piece of Noel Farquhar’s library; a huge elk 
fronted him across the room. This style of dec- 
oration, which took its origin in the simple skull 
palisades of primitive Britain and latter-day 
Africa, which was handed down by the traditions 
of Tower Hill, and which is rampant in the mod- 
ern hall, had in Noel Farquhar a devotee. The 
walls of his smoking-room bristled with the 
heads of digested enemies. Thither the two 
men repaired after dinner on Christmas night, 
taking with them a decanter of mid-century 
port, cigars of indubitable excellence, and a 
dish of nuts for Lucian, who took a childlike 
interest in extracting and peeling walnuts 
without breaking the kernel. Farquhar was 
inclined to be silent, in which mood Lucian, the 
student of the abnormal, found him specially 
interesting. 

64 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


“Queer chap you are Farquhar,” he sud- 
denly remarked. “ Why didn’t you ever tell 
me about the fascinating Fanes?” 

“Didn’t I? I thought I had.” Farquhar 
did not think any such thing, and Lucian knew 
it. “The day I went there Miss Dolly Fane 
stopped me in the hall, and would know 
whether I thought she’d make an actress. An 
odd girl.” 

“ Well, and what did you say to her?” 

“Said she would. I couldn’t do otherwise, 
could I?” 

“My immaculate friend, I’m afraid the 
charms of Miss Fane have persuaded you into 
a statement which is very remarkably near to 
a L, I, E, lie. At the least, you were disin- 
genuous, decidedly.” 

“Who says I am immaculate? Not I. You 
thrust virtues upon me and then cry out when 
I don’t come up to your notions of an arch- 
angel.” 

“ And your church-going and your alms-giv- 
ing and your brand-new coppers and general 
holiness? Eh, sonny?” 

“ I’ve a creed, as four-fifths of the men down 
here are supposed to have; but whereas they 
deny in their acts what they repeat with their 
tongues, I prefer to perform what I profess. 
There’s a fine lack of logic about the way men 

65 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


regard their faith; each time they repeat their 
Credo they’re self- condemned fools. Well, I 
don’t relish making a fool of m3^self. Either 
I’ll be an infidel, and thus set myself free, or 
else I’ll act up to what I say. For that you 
praise me. Now, the only virtue to which I 
do lay claim is patience, of which I think I 
possess an extraordinary store.” 

Lucian peeled a walnut with painstaking 
earnestness, and ate it with salt and pepper. 
The shell he flicked across at Farquhar, who 
had fallen into a brown study and was looking 
very grim. He looked up with a quick, invol- 
untary smile. 

“ Did you shoot all these homed beasties 
yourself?” Lucian inquired, introducing the 
elk and the stag with a wave of the hand. 

“Yes. I shot the elk in Russia; the horns 
weigh a good eighty pounds. Shy bmtes they 
are, and fierce when at bay ; this one lamed me 
with a kick after I thought I had done for him.” 

“ My biggest bag was twenty sjamboks mn- 
ning,” said Lucian, pensively. “I and some 
others were up country on a big shoot, and, of 
course, I got fever and had to lie up. Well, 
they used to come in with their blesbok and 
their springbok, and all the rest of it, so I didn’t 
see why I shouldn’t do a little on my own. So 
I lined up all our niggers with a sjambok apiece, 
66 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


and made my bag from my couch of pain. I 
worked those sjamboks afterwards for all they 
were worth. Yes, sir-ree.” 

“Sometimes I really think you’re daft, De 
Saumarez!” 

“Pray don’t mention it. Let’s see, where 
were you? Oh, in Russia. No, I’ve never 
been there — I don’t know Russia at all.” 

“Ido.” 

“What, intimately?” 

Farquhar turned his head, met Lucian’s eyes, 
and smiled. “Oh no; quite slightly,” he said, 
lying with candour and glee. 

“Oh, indeed,” said Lucian. “Now that’s 
queer; I thought I’d met you there. By the 
way, do you believe in eternal constancy?” 

“ In what?” 

“In eternal constancy; did you never hear 
of it before?” 

“ Well, yes, pulex irritans. I’ve seen a man go 
mourning all his life long; so I do believe in it.” 

“No, no, sonny; I’m not discussing its exist- 
ence, but its merits. Do you hold that a man 
should be eternally faithful to the memory of 
a dead woman ?” 

“ Not if he doesn’t vrant to.” 

“My point is that he oughtn’t to want to. 
See here ; your body changes every seven years, 
and I’ll be hanged if your mind doesn’t change, 
67 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


too. Now, your married couple change togeth- 
er and so keep abreast. But if the woman 
dies, she comes to a stop. In seven years the 
survivor will have grown right away from her. 
The constant husband prides himself on his 
loyalty, and is ashamed to admit even in cam- 
era that a resurrected wife wouldn’t fit into his 
present life; but in nine cases out of ten the 
wound’s healed and cicatrised, and only a 
sentimental scruple bars him from saying so. 
And there, as I take it, he’s wrong.” 

“What would you have him do?” 

“Take another woman and make her and 
himself happy.” 

“What becomes of the dead wife’s point of 
view?” 

“According to my creed, you know, she’s 
got no point of view at all.” 

“You can’t expect me to follow you there.” 

“ No ; and so I’ll cite your own creed. After 
the resurrection there shall be no marrying or 
giving in marriage. She’s no call to be jeal- 
ous,” 

“You’ve no romance about you.” 

“No sentimentalism, you mean. Half the 
feelings consecrated by public opinion are trash. 
It’s astounding how we do adore the dumps. 
Happiness is our first duty. It seems to me 
that one needs more courage to forget than to 
68 


LOVE IN CHIEF 

remember. That’s where I’ve been weak my- 
self.” 

Lucian put his hand inside his coat and took 
out the letter which Farquhar had read; he 
had been leading up to this point. He spread 
it open on his knee, showing the thick, chafed, 
blue paper, the gilded monogram and daisy 
crest, the thin Italian writing. “I’ve carried 
that about for nine years,” he said, glancing up, 
and then held the paper to the fire and watched 
it catch light. The advancing line of brown, 
the blue-edged flame, crept across the letter, 
leaving shrivelled ash in its track. Lucian held 
it till the heat scorched his fingers, and then 
let it fall in the fire. “ A passionate letter, was 
it not ?” he said, turning from the black, rustling 
tinder to meet Farquhar’s eyes. 

“My dear De Saumarez!” 

“Don’t humbug; you read it when you 
thought I was unconscious.” 

“Ah,” said Farquhar, “now I understand 
why you understood.” 

He altered his pose slightly, relaxing as 
though freed from some slight, omnipresent 
constraint; the nature which confronted Lu- 
cian was different in gross and in detail from 
the mask of excellence which he had hitherto 
kept on. Vices were there, and virtues unsus- 
pected : coarse, barbaric, potent qualities, dom- 
69 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


inated by a will-power mightier than they. 
Race-characteristics, hitherto overlaid, sudden- 
ly started out; and Lucian, recurring quickly 
to the last fresh lie which Farquhar had told 
him, exclaimed, “ Why, man, you’re a Russian 
yourself!” 

“ Half-breed. My mother was Russian. My 
father was Scotch, but a naturalized Russian 
subject. The worse for him; he died in the 
mines. Confound him: a pretty ancestry he’s 
given me, and a pretty job I’ve had to keep the 
story out of the papers. I’ve done it, though.” 

“ But what’s it for?” asked Lucian, whose 
mind was flying to the story of Jekyll and Hyde. 

“Respectability; that’s the god of England. 
Do you think I could confess myself the son of 
a couple of dirty Russian nihilists and keep 
my position? Not much. It’s the only crev- 
ice in my armour. Scores of men have tried 
to get on by shamming virtuous, but I’ve gone 
one better than they; I am virtuous. You 
can’t pick a hole in my character, because 
there’s none to pick. I speak the truth, I do 
my duty. I’m honest and honourable down to 
the end of the whole fool’s catalogue, I even 
go out of my way to be chivalrously charitable, 
as when I picked you up, or made a fool of my- 
self over that confounded copper. That’s all 
the political muck- worms find when they come 
lo 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


burrowing about me. Yes, honesty’s the best 
policy; it pays.” 

“H’m! well, my most honourable friend, 
you’d find yourself in Queer Street if I related 
how you’d read my letter.” 

“Not in the least. I was glancing at it to 
find your address.” 

“You took a mighty long time over your 
glance.” 

“ The paper was so much rubbed that I could 
hardly see where it began or ended.” 

“There was the monogram for a sign-post.” 

“Plenty women begin on the back sheet.” 

“You’re abominable; faith, you are,” said 
Lucian. “You’re a regular prayer -mill of 
lies!” 

“I’d never have touched it if I hadn’t pre- 
pared my excuse beforehand. Ruin my career 
for the sake of reading an old love-letter? 
Not I!” 

Even as Farquhar wished it, the contemptu- 
ous and insulting reference displeased Lucian; 
the letter was still sacred in his eyes. But he 
would not, and he did not, allow the feeling to 
be seen. Farquhar’ s measure of reserve was 
matched by his present openness ; but Lucian, 
whose affairs were everybody’s business, kept 
his mind as a fenced garden and a fountain 
sealed. Action and reaction are always equal 

6 71 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


and opposite ; the law is true in the moral as 
well as the physical world. 

‘‘Kindly speak of my letter with more re- 
spect, will you?” was all Lucian said. 

“Oh, the letter was charming; I wish it had 
been addressed to me!” 

“ You shut up, and don’t try to be a profane 
and foolish babbler. I want to know what it’s 
all for — what’s your aim and object, sonny?” 

“ I’m going to get into the Cabinet.” 

“You are, are you?” said Lucian. “And 
why not be premier?” 

“And why not king? Because I happen to 
know my own limitations. I’ll make a damned 
good understrapper, but the other’s beyond 
me.” 

“ You’ll change your mind when you’ve got 
your wish.” 

“And there you’re wrong. I’ll be content 
then. I’m content now, for that matter. It’s 
as good as a play to see how the virtuous peo- 
ple look up to me.” 

Lucian leaned back in the attitude proper 
to meditation, and studied his vis-a-vis over his 
joined finger-tips. Strength of body, strength 
of mind, a will keen as a knife -blade to cut 
through obstacles, an arrogant pride in him- 
self and his sins, all these had writ themselves 
large on Farquhar’s face; but the acute mind 
72 


LOVE IN CHIEF 

of the critic was questing after more amiable 
qualities. 

“And so you took me in as an instance of 
chivalrous charity, eh ? And what do you keep 
me here for, now Tm sain and safe?’’ 

“You’re not well enough to be dismissed 
cured.” 

“ I beg your pardon. I could go and hold 
horses to-morrow.” 

“ I shall have to find some work for you be- 
fore I let you go. I like to do the thing thor- 
oughly.” 

“ I see. I’m being kept as an object-lesson 
in generosity; is that so?” 

“ You’ve hit it,” said Farquhar. “ Hope you 
like the position. Have a cigar?” 

“ No, thanks. I don’t mind being a sand- 
wich-man, but I draw the line at an object- 
lesson.” Lucian got up, and began buttoning 
his coat round him. “ If that’s your reason 
for keeping me. I’m off.” 

“De Saumarez, don’t be a fool.” 

“ I will not be an object-lesson,” said Lucian, 
making for the door. “ My conscience rebels 
against the deception. I will expire on your 
threshold.” 

Farquhar jumped up and put his back against 
the door. “Go and sit down, you fool!” 

“I’ve not the slightest intention of sitting 

73 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


down. I will be a body — a demd, damp, 
moist, unpleasant body.” 

” Do you mean this?” 

“I do. Fm too proud to take money from 
a man who’s not a friend.” 

Farquhar was very angry. He knew what 
Lucian wanted, but he would not say it. “ Go, 
and be hanged to you, then!” he retorted, and 
flung round towards the fire. 

“All right, I’m going"' said Lucian, as he 
went into the hall. 

He took his cap and his stick. Overcoat he 
had none, and he could not now borrow Far- 
quhar’ s. His own clothes were inadequate even 
for mid-day wearing, and for night were absurd. 
All this Farquhar knew. He heard Lucian un- 
bolt and unlock the front door, and presently 
the wind swept in, invaded the hall, and made 
Farquhar shiver, sitting by the Are. Lucian 
coughed. 

Up sprang Farquhar; he ran into the hall, 
flung the door closed, caught Lucian round 
the shoulders, and in the impatient pride of 
his strength literally carried him back to the 
library close to the fire. “You fool!” he said. 
“You dashed fool!” 

“Well?” said Lucian, looking up, laughing, 
from the sofa upon which he had been cast. 
“Own up! Why do you keep me here?” 

74 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


“ Because you have a damnable way of get- 
ting yourself liked. Because you’re sick.” 

” Sh! don’t swear like that, sonny; you really 
do shock me. And so you like me?” 

“I’ve always a respect for people who find 
me out,” retorted Farquhar. “The others — 
Lord, what fools — what fools colossal! But 
you’ve grit ; you know your own mind ; you do 
what you want, and not what your dashed 
twopenny-halfpenny passions want. Besides, 
you’re ill,” he wound up again, with a change 
of tone which sent Lucian’s eyebrows up to his 
shaggy hair. 

“You’re a nice person for a small Sunday- 
school!” was his comment. “Well, well! So 
you profess yourself superior to dashed two- 
penny-halfpenny passions — such as affection, 
for example?” 

“I was bound to stop you going. You’d 
have died at my door and made a scandal.” 

“You know very well that never entered 
your head. Take care what you say; I can 
still go, you know.” 

Farquhar laughed, half angry; he chafed 
under Lucian’s control; would fain have denied 
it, but could not. “Confound you, I wish I’d 
never seen you!” he said. 

“You’ll wish that more before you’ve done. 
I’m safe to bring bad luck. Gimme your hand 
75 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


and ril tell your fortune. I can read the palm 
like any gypsy ; got a drop of Romany blood in 
me, I guess.” 

“You’ll not read mine,” said Farquhar, grim- 
ly, putting it out. 

“Won’t I? Hullo! You’ve got a nice little 
handful!” 

The hand was scarred from wrist to finger- 
tips. 

‘ ‘ N ever noticed it before , did you ? I’m pret- 
ty good at hiding it by now.” 

“How on earth was it done?” 

“ In hell — that’s Africa. I told you I learned 
massage from an old Arab sheikh ; well, I prac- 
tised on him. I was alone and down with fever, 
and they don’t have river police on the Lua- 
laba. He made me his slave. Used to thrash 
me when he chose to say I’d not done my work ; 
make me kneel at his feet and strike me on the 
face.” 

“Good Lord! How did you like that, 
sonny?” 

“ I smiled at him till he got sick of it. Then 
he put me on silence: one word, death. He 
thought he’d catch me out, but I’d no notion of 
that; I held my tongue. So one day the old 
devil sent me to fetch his knife. It was dusk, 
and I picked it up carelessly; the handle was 
white-hot. He’d tried that trick with slaves 
76 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


before. Liked to see them howl and drop it, 
and then finish them off with the very identical 
knife — confound him!” 

“Amen. And what did you do ?” 

“I? Brought him his knife by the blade; 
do you think I was going to let him cheat me 
out of my career?” 

Lucian stared at him. “You — you!” he 
said. “And I verily believe the man’s telling 
the truth. What happened next?” 

“ Something to do with termites that I won’t 
repeat; it might make you ill.” 

“Only a channel steamer does that, sonny. 
You got away, though?” 

“ Eventually ; half blind and deadly sick. By 
the way, you’ve not told me why you made up 
your mind to burn that letter at this precise 
time?” 

“To draw you, of course. And now you’ll be 
pleased to go and see that my room’s ready; 
I can hear Bernard Fane hammering at the 
door, so you can play billiards with him while 
I go to bye-low.” 


VII 


COURAGE QUAND MEME 

J ANUARY came with the snow-drop, Feb- 
ruary brought the crocus, and March vio- 
lets were empurpling the woods before the 
next scene came on the stage and introduced 
a new actor. In the meanwhile, Lucian con- 
tinued to live on Noel Farquhar’s bounty. It 
should have been an intolerable position, but 
Lucian’s luckless head had received such se- 
vere bludgeonings at the hands of Fate that he 
was glad to hide it anywhere, and give his pride 
the cong6. His choice lay between remaining 
with Farquhar, retiring to the workhouse, and 
expiring in a haystack without benefit of clergy ; 
he chose the least heroic course, and, sad to say, 
he found it very pleasant. 

One night alarm he gave Farquhar. Punc- 
tual to its time, the cold snap of mid-January 
arrived on the eleventh of the month, and Lu- 
cian went skating at Fanes. His tutelary di- 
vinity Dolly being absent, he was beguiled into 
staving late, got chilled, and awoke Farquhar 

78 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


at three in the morning by one of his usual at- 
tacks. It was very slight and soon checked, 
but the incident strengthened the bond be- 
tween them; for Lucian did not forget Far- 
quhar’s face when he found him fighting for 
breath, nor the lavish tenderness of his subse- 
quent nursing, which seemed to be extorted 
from him by a force stronger than his would- 
be carelessness. That constraining force Lu- 
cian declined to christen : friendship seemed too 
mild a term for Farquhar’s crude emotions. 

No one could have felt more horribly ashamed 
than Lucian, on finding that his host gave 
up all engagements to wait upon him. He 
was soon about again, but he now guarded his 
health as though he had it on a repairing lease. 
When Dolly consulted him on points of eti- 
quette, as she soon learned to do, he retaliated 
jvith questions concerning the proper conduct 
of an invalid; it is only fair to say that Dolly 
was the more correct informant. He was wel- 
come at Fanes. Dolly liked him; so also did 
Bernard, whose affections were pure in quality, 
but exclusive ; and fate gave him a third admir- 
er in the person of Eumenes Fane, though the 
esteem in this case was but a bruised reed, liable 
to fail in time of stress. Farquhar, who was 
also a frequent visitor at Fanes, was not so 
popular. 


79 


LOVE IN CHIEF 

On a fine morning in March, when the air 
felt like velvet and the linnets were beginning 
to nest, Bernard drove over to Swanborough 
market, as his habit was, to buy Dolly her 
week’s stores. On his way home he met with 
an adventure. The distance from Swanborough 
to Monkswell by the London road was only 
fourteen miles; but Bernard’s horse was young 
and fresh, and he chose a longer route through 
by-ways where there was less chance of meeting 
motors and traction-engines, Vronsky’s special 
bugbears. Lonely, wild, and hilly was the 
country-side; the gold sun had just sunk be- 
hind the leafless woods, and a rosy twilight was 
invading the sky, when Bernard turned into a 
certain steep and narrow lane between high 
banks of violet-haimted grass, locally known as 
Hungry gut Bottom. As they spun down the 
slope, from behind them sounded the nasal 
Hoot! toot! which Vronsky hated. Bernard 
looked back over his shoulder. A small car 
with a single rider had topped the crest of the 
hill and was swiftly descending : too swiftly to 
be stopped at such short notice. Vronsky 
could be brought to tolerate a motor that he 
met; but to be overtaken and passed by one 
was more than his nerves could bear. Good 
whip though Bernard was, in this narrow lane he 
feared disaster. Midway down , where the banks 
8o 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


were lower, a gate stood open, leading into a 
meadow. Bernard touched up the horse, and 
made for this haven as fast as he could. But, 
as the dog-cart turned to enter, Vronsky caught 
sight of the appalling monster behind. He 
kicked, he danced, he stood on his hind-legs, 
he backed the dog-cart right across the road, 
and there he stayed, broadside on to the ad- 
vancing motor, while Bernard set his teeth and 
awaited the crash. The car was almost upon 
them: suddenly it swerved violently to the 
left and flew up the bank. Right up to the top 
it ran, and upset. For a moment Bernard’s 
heart was in his mouth as he thought to see it 
fall over sideways on the driver and burst into 
flames; but it rocked, and steadied, and stood 
in equilibrium, while the electric batteries came 
hurtling through the air into the road like so 
many fourteen-pound jampots. 

Vronsky turned and bolted down the hill, 
and was some way up the opposite slope be- 
fore Bernard could bring him to his senses. 
He came back as fast as he could, and found 
the driver sitting up beside his car, hatless, 
with a somewhat bewildered air. He had been 
pitched heels over head among the brambles 
close to a heap of flints, and there he had 
stayed. 

“ I sav, are you hurt?” Bernard hailed him. 

8i 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


“I don’t think so. I believe I still pos- 
sess a head.” 

The voice was soft and low and lazy, with 
a touch of quaint humor. He looked up at 
Bernard without offering to rise. In the twi- 
light Bernard could see only that he was tall 
and slight and young, and dressed in gray. 

“ It was an awfully plucky thing to do. If 
you’d come on I must have been killed,” said 
Bernard, simply. 

“Well, so must I, you know.” 

“ No, you’d have been pitched out, and might 
have got off scot-free. It was about the pluck- 
iest thing I’ve seen.” 

“The whole thing was my fault.” 

“It was the horse’s fault, not yours at all.” 

“ It was mine,” said the stranger, with swift 
decision. “ I was going too fast. I should 
have changed the speed to come down the hill, 
and I would not; I thought I should meet no 
one, and I chose to risk it. I shall have to give 
up motoring, I suppose.” 

“What on earth should you do that for?” 

“ Because otherwise I shall infallibly end by 
killing somebody.” 

“You needn’t if you only take reasonable 
care.” 

“And that is precisely what I never shall do. 
There’s a fascination about it — a sense of pow- 
82 


LOVE IN CHIEF 

er — it’s as fatal as gambling. Yes; I must 
give it up.” 

He got on his feet with an effort and regarded 
himself. Disgust at the mud on his clothes 
and his hands apparently preoccupied his mind, 
though he had scratched his face and bumped 
his head and bruised himself most thoroughly 
all down his side ; in addition, Bernard saw that 
his right hand was streaming with blood This 
he had not noticed until Bernard pointed it 
out. 

“Oh, that was the flints,” he observed, in 
his former quaint and lazy way. 

“Lucky for you you didn’t fall right on 
them. Your wrist’s cut to the bone.” 

“So I should fancy,” said the stranger, 
wincing under Bernard’s ministrations. He 
looked so faint with pain and loss of blood 
that Bernard went down to the dog-cart and 
brought up the flask which he carried in case 
of accidents; with Vronsky in the shafts they 
were to be expected. But when he got back 
the stranger was at the top of the bank examin- 
ing his car, and rejected the brandy with thanks 
and scorn. 

“It hasn’t suffered much,” he said, with 
satisfaction. “There’s a small crack in the 
panel, but if I can get the batteries in I believe 
I shall be able to go on.” 

83 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


“You can’t steer the thing with that wrist. 
You’d better come on with me to Dove Green ; 
it’s only a mile on, and you can send back for 
the car.” 

“One doesn’t need two hands to steer.” 

“ But you said you meant to give up motor- 
ing.” 

“So I do; which is an additional reason why 
I should drive it to-night, when I have the 
excuse.” 

“Do you like the thing?” exclaimed Ber- 
nard. 

“Don’t you like that handsome chestnut 
of yours?” 

“Yes, but that’s different. A horse has 
sense; you can’t compare it to that beastly, 
snorting, smelling thing.” 

“ If you’d ever driven a motor, you’d be 
ready to declare that it had sense, too ; machin- 
ery’s almost human, sometimes.” 

Bernard was wholly unconvinced, and thought 
the stranger a little mad. “ You’d much bet- 
ter come on with me,” he said. 

“Thanks very much; but I have to get on 
to Monkswell this evening, and then back to 
Swanborough. I came this cross-country route 
because I thought I should have it to myself 
and could drive fast.” 

“Are you going to Monkswell?” 

84 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


“I am; do you know it?” 

“I live there.” 

“Do you? Then I expect you know my 
friends, the Mertons, at the Hall.” 

“M’yes.” 

“Ah! very likely we shall meet, then; I be- 
lieve I am to stay there as soon as I get my 
next leave.” 

“No, I don’t suppose we shall,” Bernard 
answered. “We hardly know them; only on 
sufferance. They’re a cut above us.” 

“I see.” 

The tone was neutral, it was too dark to 
read faces, and the stranger said no more. In 
a minute he was calling upon Bernard to help 
him set the motor on its wheels again, and to- 
gether they dragged it down into the road, 
Bernard doing most of the work, for the stran- 
ger’s strength was frail, like his physique. 

“You’re not fit to go on,” were Bernard’s 
last words, as the stranger settled uneasily into 
his seat, with a tender consideration for all his 
bruises and cuts. But he got no answer save 
a smile and a wave of the hand. He waited 
till the car was out of sight, and then fetched 
Vronsky out of the field and drove home with- 
out further incident. 

He found Dolly waiting in the warm, dark 
parlor, reading by firelight, her feet on the mar- 

85 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


ble rim of the hearth, her face close to the 
flames, which glowed and reddened the ceiling 
and flickered in gold on her hair. She raised 
a flushed face from her book : an intent reader 
was Dolly. 

“Where have you been? You’re late.” 

Bernard told his story in detail. 

“I wonder who he can be?” Dolly said, 
nursing her chin in her hand. 

“He was an awfully plucky chap, whoever 
he was. I never saw anything neater than the 
way he turned that machine up the bank; he 
kept so jolly cool. And he made his head spin, 
too. I’d bet; he’d got a lump on his forehead 
the size of a seed-potato, but he never said a 
word about it. Yes, he was plucky. I like 
that sort.” 

“ Was he a gentleman?” 

“ Rather! A regular dude to look at; all’ his 
things were made in town, I guess.” 

“And coming to stay with the Mertons. I 
do wonder who he is?” 

“Nobody we shall ever know, anyhow.” 

“ Don’t be so sure of that,” said Dolly, wisely. 
“I shall ask Mr. de Saumarez.” 

Next morning Lucian came tapping at one 
of the less honourable doors of Fanes, and 
was bidden enter by a preoccupied voice. He 
found Dolly hard at work, with sleeves rolled 
86 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


to the shoulders; she was in the second dairy, 
but her occupation had no fellowship with 
butter, cream, or cheese. A cool, dark, and 
lofty chamber it was, the walls midway to 
the roof being covered with white glazed tiles, 
the floor with red. Waist - high stood out 
a broad white shelf, now piled with square 
frames of unpainted deal confining square 
panes of glass, upon one of which Dolly was 
spreading soft white pomade with a palette- 
knife. A bushel-basket half filled with violets 
stood beside her ; the air reeked with the scent 
of them. Lucian’s curiosity found vent in the 
natural inquiry : 

“What on earth are you doing?” 

“Oh, it’s you, is it?” Dolly glanced round, 
straightened her shoulders, swept her basket 
to the floor, and exposed a three-legged milk- 
ing-stool. “ There’s a chair for you; you must 
not stand. I’m making scent.” 

“How enthralling! Mayn’t I help?” 

“Wait till you see how I do it,” quoth pru- 
dent Dolly. 

Lucian unwound a yard and a half of com- 
forter, deposited his mackintosh, umbrella, and 
goloshes, and sat down to watch, tucking his 
long legs under the stool, and tossing back his 
shaggy brown hair. Dolly spread the white 
paste thickly and evenlv over the glass in two 
7 87 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


of the frames. Next she filled her hands with 
violets, decapitated the pretty blossoms, and 
sprinkled them broadcast on the pomade till 
the frame was full to the brim ; she capped that 
frame with the second and pressed them close, 
so that they formed a box three inches deep, 
enclosing the violets between two layers of po- 
made ; they were then ready to be put aside for 
the time being. She would not trust Lucian to 
spread the pomade, but she allowed him to be- 
head the violets for her, and was grateful; for 
the quicker she was the fresher were the vio- 
lets, and the more valuable the pomade made 
from them. Thrifty Dolly made a snlall income 
by her perfumes. 

Her dress, between lavender and blue, just 
matched the blue chicory which borders Au- 
gust cornfields ; and the cluster of violets which 
she had tucked into her bosom agreed with its 
color. She was bareheaded, and her hair glis- 
tened even in shadow like copper veined with 
gold. She was not thinking of herself, but of 
her violets, and Lucian’s eyes were fixed on 
her to the hindrance of his work. 

“ You’re leaving stalks on the flowers,” Dolly 
pointed out. 

“ I couldn’t help it. My eyes were all for 
you.” 

“Don’t,” said Dolly, brusquely. 

88 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


“ It’s really the correct thing to say; besides, 
it’s the truth.” 

“ I don’t like it, from you. How is your 
cough?” 

“ Mayn’t I pay you compliments because I 
have a cough?” 

“You may not; they don’t sound appro- 
priate.” 

“That’s very cruel of you. I think I shall 
go home.” 

“No; wait till you’re rested. Do you know 
if the Mertons have a young man coming to 
stay with them soon?” 

“A young man, lydy? What’s his name?” 

“I don’t know. He nearly killed Bernard 
and Vronsky with his motor-car, and Bernard 
was immensely taken with hirn. He is young, 
in the army, stationed at Swanborough, a friend 
of the Mertons, and Bernard generally calls 
him the dude.” 

Dolly’s curiosity was not to be satisfied yet. 
Lucian shook his head. 

“ Couldn’t say, my dear girl. There are any 
number of young officers at Swanborough, all 
as like as peas, and you can’t call it a distinction 
to run down Vronsky. If he hadn't done it, 
now — ” 

“ I thought you might have known from the 
Mertons; you know Mrs. Merton, don’t vou?” 

89 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


“ I used to, before she was married ; I haven’t 
kept up with all her distinguished acquaintances 
since. Ah! There were days when she loved 
me dearly. Once when I was a sandwich-man 
she walked up and down Fleet Street with me 
for an hour. I was carrying the advertise- 
ments of ‘Woman — the Charmer,’ and I could 
hear everybody sa^dng it was an object-lesson.” 

Dolly had by this time heard a good many 
well-found anecdotes from Lucian, and had 
learned that his personal experiences were 
sometimes culled from another person’s past. 
‘‘I don’t believe that,” she said, calmly. 

“Well, anyhow, she gave me a penny once 
when I begged of her — fact!” said Lucian, un- 
abashed. 

“Where?” 

“At a fancy ball where I went got up as a 
blind beggar ; I was the success of the evening. 
She’s a right-down good sort, is little Ella Mer- 
ton. You never told me how you got on when 
she called, by the way.” 

“I think, pretty well,” said Dolly, doubtful- 
ly. “Fortunately, I saw the carriage driving 
down, and I sent Maggie to open the door, 
instead of going myself.” Maggie was a little 
black-eyed maiden of fourteen, who helped 
in the housework. “I had put fresh flowers 
in the parlour that very morning, and I was 
90 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


wearing this dress — now it is tumbled, but it 
was fresh then — ” 

“ And you didn’t change it ?’^ 

“No, I did not; should I have?” 

“No, you did quite right, Sweet Lavender. 
Well?” 

“ I went in, and we talked. She stayed for 
an hour. Part of that time I was out fetching 
tea ; it seemed rude, but I explained to her that 
Maggie was not strong enough to carry the sil- 
ver salver. I used the red-and-gold china that 
you like, and there were scones and flead-cakes, 
and I put out some apricots in syrup ; but very 
little of each, not as Bernard likes them. I 
thought that must be right, because she ate 
less even than you do. Was it?” 

Lucian was laughing without disguise as he 
commended her wisdom. “ And what did you 
talk about?” 

“ I don’t quite know,” said Dolly, doubtful 
again. “She really does say such strange 
things. Bernard will have it that she’s crazy, 
but I think she’s only clever. I should im- 
agine her conversation was all epigrams and 
paradoxes.” 

“And what do you know about epigrams 
and paradoxes, pray?” 

“Sometimes in reviewing society novels the 
newspapers give examples of the wit with which 

91 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


they literally coruscate. I can’t always follow 
them,” said Dolly, who was candour itself, even 
to her own hindrance, “but. I suppose that is 
because I don’t understand the allusions. Mrs. 
Merton talks like them. Why do you laugh?” 

“ Mrs. Merton makes a point of talking sheer 
nonsense,” said Lucian, as soon as he could 
speak. “ I sha’n’t send my novels to you for 
criticism. Something lingering, with boiling 
oil, is your idea of a mild review.” 

“If I thought them silly I should say so,” 
said Dolly, calmly; “that is, if you wanted my 
opinion. But what ought I to do about Mrs. 
Merton’s call? I am sure there is something, 
if I only knew what?” 

Lucian promptly furnished her with infor- 
mation concerning the social laws in good so- 
ciety. In all innocence, he gave her counsels 
likely to raise the hair on Mrs. Merton’s head 
if Dolly obeyed them. Many things Lucian 
could teach, but not propriety. 

“But what’s the use of this? I thought 
you were going on the stage,” he said, breaking 
away. “You haven’t forgotten about it, have 
you ?” 

“No, I’ve not forgotten,” Dolly answered; 
and she put up her hand, which had just met 
his among the violets, perhaps to brush her 
hair back, and perhaps to conceal her face. 

92 


LOVE IN CHIEF 

“What do you think of Mr. Farquhar?” she 
asked. 

“Oho!” said Lucian, after one second’s hesi- 
tation. “Well, he’s the best hand at a friend- 
ship I ever met. But why?” 

Dolly vouchsafed no answer to this question. 
“I am glad you think so; you who know him 
so well,” she said, scattering her violets so 
carelessly that some of them fell to the floor. 
Lucian picked them up and coughed in stoop- 
ing. “There! I have let you work too long. 
Sit; you must.” 

Lucian found himself maternally condemned 
to the milking-stool. His face darkened as he 
sat down; one might have thought him angry, 
but the shadow passed over his face and was 
gone. “My dear girl, why do you inquire 
about Farquhar?” he said, quietly persistent. 
“And why do you couple his name with your 
future? Go on; you may as well tell me.” 

Dolly hesitated. “There’s nothing to tell,” 
she said. 

“ Exactly so,” said Lucian. “ Lord ! I never 
thought of that! I am an owl.” And he fell 
into a brown-study. 

Violets were clinging to Dolly’s Angers and 
her arms ; one was even swinging in a tendril of 
hair above her temple. As she went to put the 
last frame in its place, she crossed the solitary 
93 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


sun-ray which shot through the deep, narrow 
window athwart the room, and was transfigured. 
Her very lashes shone like threads of gold. 

“Let me do that,” said Lucian, taking the 
frame away. Dolly stood watching him, as a 
woman will do when work is taken out of her 
hands. The pile of frames was high by now, 
and Lucian was careless; they tottered, and 
threatened to fall. 

“ Take care!” exclaimed Dolly; and her hand 
shot out beside Lucian’s, to steady them. 
Round the curve of her bare arm twined a 
vein as blue as lazuli, winding inwards at the 
elbow, where a faint rose stained the clear 
milky alabaster. Lucian took it in the palm 
of his brown hand. “The loveliest thing I’ve 
seen in my life, Dolly,” he said, softly. 

The frames might fall, now; Dolly bent up 
her arm so quickly that she almost shut in 
Lucian’s nose. The frames did not fall, how- 
ever; for Lucian steadied them before he turn- 
ed. A rose of indignation burned in Dolly’s 
cheek ; she was drawing down her sleeve to hide 
the insulted arm from view. 

“I’m awfully sorry,” said Lucian. 

“I don’t allow liberties of that kind,” Dolly 
retorted. 

“Candidly, it wasn’t a liberty. An indis- 
cretion, if you will, but I meant what I said.” 

94 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


“ I think you had better go home.” 

“ I will, in a minute. But, look here; if you 
shouldn’t take Farquhar, would there be any 
chance for me?” 

“You!” cried Dolly, her indignation changed 
to wide amazement. Lucian smiled. 

“Now go and tell me that the words don’t 
sound appropriate from me,” he said, sweet- 
teniperedly. “I’ll be shot if I don’t agree with 
you, too. They don’t. A poor, rickety, ill-di- 
gested ostrich like me has no business in this 
galley. All the same, I don’t believe in losing 
anything for want of asking. So if Farquhar 
by any chance doesn’t suit, remember you’ve 
got another beau on your string — will you, 
dear?” 

But Dolly stood silent, fastening the links 
at her wrist and beating the tiles with her foot. 
Her virginal dignity had been ruffled, but she 
did not care for that now. 

“ I thought we were friends!” she said. 

“Aren’t we?” 

“ Not if you are wanting this. How can we 
be?” 

“All right, then, I don't want it. I guess I 
know my answer when I’ve got it.” 

Dolly took her eyes off the ground and fixed 
them on his face, using all her powers of obser- 
vation and deduction. He stood laughing, 
95 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


whimsical, insouciant, with his hands in his 
pockets, and defied them. But Dolly remem- 
bered that he had quoted her own words about 
his incapacity. ''Compliments don't sound ap- 
propriate from you." If they had not stung, 
they would have been forgotten. Dolly un- 
derstood. 

“ I am sorry — I am sorry!” she exclaimed. 

“ My dear girl, don’t distress yourself. I’ve 
had at least twenty affairs before, to say noth- 
ing of being actually married.” 

“ Married!” 

“ All right, all right; I’ve no Italian wives up 
my sleeve. She’s been dead these nine years 
past. I merely wish to point out to you that 
my heartstrings take cement. Look here, I’m 
going to call you Dolly; do you mind?” 

“Is it the proper thing?” began Dolly, her 
eyes dancing. 

“Yes, my dear girl; say we’re cousins — we 
are, through Adam. Anyway, I’ll do the lying 
for you; I’m handy at it. Are you going to 
have old Farquhar?” 

“ I don’t know.” 

“You don’t care for him?” 

Dolly shook her head. 

“ That’s a pity. But he’s very keen on 
you?” 

“ How can I possibly tell? He’s not said so,” 
96 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


“Don’t be coy; now don’t,” said Lucian. 
“I’m anxious to further your happiness. Then, 
I take it, he’s desperately smitten; h’m! he’ll 
be neither to hold nor to bind. I’m think- 
ing.” 

“ I am sure this conversation is not at all 
the proper thing,” said Dolly, demurely. 

“ It’s not, like the holes in my elbows; you’re 
right there. But look here; what I want to 
say is this: There’s a heap of unregenerate 
wickedness in old Farquhar, as I reckon you’ve 
found out, but anybody he likes can lead him 
by the nose. I’ve heard him talk surprising 
bosh about his career, and the aims of his life, 
und so wieder; but I tell you he’d throw the 
whole cargo overboard to the sharks if it got in 
your way. You know what his arm’s like? 
Well, he’s got a mind made on the same pattern ; 
and you, my dear, good girl, have got Samson 
in chains. And mind you don’t play Delilah, 
or there’ll be the etcetera to pay. That’s the 
truth for you.” 

Dolly listened to this homily and did not 
commit herself. “ I believe you really want 
me to marry him,” was her comment. 

“I’d dance at the wedding with a light 
heart,” Lucian averred. 

“That you should not; nothing could be 
worse for you.” 


97 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


“Look here, I’ve had one mother,” said 
Lucian. “Be a sister for a change, now 
do.” 

“ I like looking after you.” 

“ So does Farquhar. Community of tastes—” 

“ Please, Mr. de Saumarez, will you go home ? 
I’ve the dinner to lay.” 

“ Lunch, we call it in society.” 

“ I shall give you a dose of cod-liver oil if you 
don’t go.” 

The threat was sufficient, and Lucian fled, 
forgetting his comforter and goloshes. Dolly 
swept the floor and washed the shelf and put 
all trim again. “I wish I loved him,” once 
she said, and offered to her coldness the tribute 
of a sigh. 

The rejected suitor did not at once return 
to The Lilacs. He made a detour through the 
church-yard,' and sat down to meditate appro- 
priately among the tombs. Lucian could not, 
like his friend, claim the consolations of religion, 
for he was an agnostic. That is to say, he ac- 
knowledged that he did not know anything, 
he did not boast that he knew nothing. Like 
poor James Thomson, he thought, as he saw 
the spire ascending to the blue and open sky, 
that it would be sweet to enter in, to kneel and 
pray ; the pride of unbelief was not his sin. It 
98 


LOVE IN CHIEF 

was a pity that he could not do it, because he 
had a natural gift for religion ; and no one pre- 
tends that agnosticism, except that militant on 
a stump in Hyde Park, is a soul-satisfying 
creed. 


L.of C. 


VIII 


“ I HAVE THEE BY THE HANDS 
AND WILL NOT LET THEE GO ” 

T hat afternoon Dolly tied a handkerchief 
over her head and with Maggie’s help 
spring-cleaned the parlour, an operation which 
involved the brushing, clapping, and dusting 
of ever}^ separate volume on the shelves. She 
moved the furniture out into the hall, swept 
the floor with tea - leaves mixed with violets, 
and had everything tidy in time for tea at 
half - past five. A capable housewife was 
Dolly Fane. But after tea she left Maggie 
to wash up, under orders to be careful of 
the Worcester china which Lucian admired, 
and herself went out for a walk to rest her- 
self. 

Beyond the stream a hill rose steep and 
grassy, crossed by the hedge -rows and sen- 
tinel elms of a Kentish lane, still netted in 
autumn’s grey clematis, though violets blos- 
somed thick below. Eglantine Lane was its 
local name ; it was a lonely place, neglected by 

lOO 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


the parish council, and voluminously muddy. 
A satirical notice-board announced that the au- 
thorities would not be responsible for injuries 
sustained by persons using the unmetalled part 
of the road, and another sign at the top of the 
hill described it truthfully as Dangerous to 
Cyclists. Dolly, nevertheless, scaled it with- 
out loss of breath; she had been on her feet 
since six in the morning, but she knew no bet- 
ter how to feel tired than the unfortunate Hans 
how to shiver and shake. Near the top was a 
gate and a stile, and a view of a field which had 
broken out into a black small-pox of heaps that 
were presently to be strewn over the soil. Fish- 
manure: as Dolly had known a month ago at 
Fanes, any day when the wind was blowing 
from the east. These are the vernal scents of 
happy Kent. 

Dolly climbed upon the post of the stile to 
look at the crops and congratulate herself that 
Bernard was a better farmer than his neigh- 
bours. Bernard worked with his men, and was 
to be seen in due season carting manure with 
the best of them; though, afterwards, Dolly 
forbade him the parlour and grudged him the 
house until he had bathed and changed. Ex- 
ample is better than precept, and Fane’s farm 
flourished while others declined; and Dolly, to 
whom Bernard was still the first man in the 


lOI 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


world, glowed with sympathetic triumph in 
watching his fruitful acres. 

She presently witnessed a touching scene. 
At a stone’s-throw beyond the next bend stood 
a solitary cottage, and from the cottage came 
wandering a stray angel aged three, with blue 
eyes and golden curls and a brow of smutty 
pearl. The angel progressed erratically, chant- 
ing a ditty, and smiting the ground with a stick 
as tall as herself. So large a sceptre is awk- 
ward for handling, and it soon happened that 
it got between the angel’s fat legs and upset 
her in the mire. The ditty became an ulula- 
tion. Dolly was trying to screw her recalci- 
trant sympathy up to the point of sympathizing 
when a fresh actor appeared. Round the corner 
spun a cyclist at full speed, who came within a 
hair of involving the angel and himself in one 
red ruin. A skilful rider, he skirted the edge of 
tragedy and passed safely by, but immediately 
jumped off his bicycle and went back to see 
what was wrong. He heard a perfectly unin- 
telligible tale of woe, ruined his handkerchief 
by using it as a towel, consoled the angel with 
a penny, and sent her off with a kiss. 

The last was too much for Dolly ; she laughed. 

“Ah! it’s you,” said Farquhar. He wheeled 
his bicycle to the bank and came and leaned 
against the gate. Something in his tone and 


102 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


his words, some threat in his manner (always 
the truthful index of his mood), prompted Dolly 
to say, in her chilliest tones : 

“Are you going to stay?” 

“lam.” 

“Then Til go.” 

She put one hand on the post to vault down. 
Farquhar took her wrists and forcibly stayed 
her. “ No, you won’t; I want to talk to you.” 

“Talk, then; I won’t answer you.” 

“Will you answer if I let you go?” 

Dolly thought for a minute and slowly an- 
swered, “Yes.” 

“That’s right,” said Farquhar, releasing her. 
“ I’ve been wanting to speak to you this month 
past. Why have you kept out of my way?” 

“ For the same reason that I’m speaking to 
you now: because I chose to.” 

“Because you chose to — Dolly, I swear I 
never saw a woman to compare with you for 
beauty ! Why don’t you ride ? On horseback 
you’d be a queen.” 

“ I used to, but my horse got staked and had 
to be shot.” 

“ Were you on him ?” 

“ I was; afterwards he was on me.” 

“My God! I’m glad I didn’t see it.” 

“I was not hurt; and why should it affect 
you if I had been?” 


103 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


“Anything affects me that has to do with 
you. I’m in love with you; you know it.” 

“How much?” inquired Dolly. He stood; 
she still sat on the gate, one foot swinging, and 
his face, thrown back to look up at her, fronted 
the sunset. Dolly felt like Fatima turning 
the little golden key, but she was at present 
mistress of the situation, and her spirits rose. 
“How much?” she said again. 

“You want the whole fool’s catalogue? 
Hear, then : you’re heaven and earth and hell, 
sun and darkness, flower and dove and angel, 
light of my soul, fire in my veins — no! I’ll be 
hanged if those trashy similes will serve! I’ll 
tell you what you’re like : quick- lime in the eyes, 
vitriol on the naked flesh. See there!” — -he 
pushed his sleeve up (Dolly, though her nerves 
were tolerably steady, uttered an exclamation) 
— “ see those scars ? I’ll tell you what they are 
— ants. I’ve been tied up to be eaten alive by 
them. You put it to yourself what that’s like. 
Well, I’d stand that all over again sooner than 
have you refuse me.” 

That he was sincere and spoke the truth Dolly 
could not doubt, and he made her sick; she 
turned away her face. Farquhar dropped from 
passion to passionate entreaty, his voice sank 
to a murmur, he captured her hand and pressed 
it to his cold cheek. “ Dolly, Dolly, give your- 
104 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


self to me, and I’ll make you love me; I swear 
it. You’re my only one, my own; I’d not snap 
my fingers to win a queen. I’ve never so much 
as kissed a woman before. You’ll never have 
a man say that to you again and tell the truth. 
And I’ll never change; don’t you make any 
error about that. What I say to - day I’ll 
say again in fifty years, when you’re old and 
ugly. Only come to me, Dolly ; do come to me. 
Dolly, Dolly!” He was covering her palm 
with kisses; his lips were hot, though he was 
shivering, or rather shuddering. “ If you’ll 
only come. I’ll make you love me,” he said, 
lifting his face; and the surprising strength of 
his passion made Dolly own that the boast was 
likely to prove true. She was moved. Blue- 
beard’s chamber was worth exploring; but she 
did not want to stay there. 

“ W611, I don’t love you, Mr. Farquhar,” she 
said, calmly. “ I hate the way you talk, and I 
mean to be my own mistress awhile yet.” 

“I’ll say no word that could hurt a child.” 

“What’s the use of that? Your thoughts 
are all wrong.” 

“I’ll keep my thoughts in as I keep my 
tongue.” 

“No,” said Dolly, with mounting spirit. 

Farquhar bent his head against her knee and 
breathed hard. When he looked up he was 

105 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


haggard. He was suffering there before her 
eyes, but hardily. 

“ ril not take that answer as final,” said he. 

“It’s not meant to be. I want time to 
think.” 

“ Do you? I’ll have you yet.” 

“ Don’t be so sure. I’d far rather marry Mr. 
de Saumarez.” 

“ Has that miserable little etiolated pension- 
er of mine dared to come after you?” 

“ Don’t speak of my friend so, if you please.” 

“ Would you like me to go and beg his par- 
don? I’d do it, if you told me.” 

Only the thought of Lucian’s disgust kept 
Dolly back from taking him at his word. “ I 
like Mr. de Saumarez, and I don’t think I like 
you at all. But you can give me the position 
I want, and he can’t. I want time to think it 
over. Come to me three months hence, and 
I’ll tell you my decision.” 

“Do you like love at second-hand? De 
Saumarez has carried his sweetheart’s letter 
against his heart for nine years, and she wasn’t 
you.” 

“I’d like his love at tenth-hand better than 
yours,” said Dolly, with spirit. 

Farquhar laughed grimly. “ And there you're 
wrong, my dear. I love you pretty decently 
well, though I’ll admit there’s a bit of the devil 
io6 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


in me. You want me to wait three months? 
All right; only I warn you that my position 
and, consequently, your ambition ’ll suffer.” 

“Why?” 

“ Do you expect me to reel out platitudes in 
Parliament while you’re playing the deuce with 
me? Not much! And if I hold my tongue 
this session, I may as well take the Chiltern 
Hundreds.” 

“ Nonsense,” said Dolly, a trifle cross. “ You 
could do it if you tried. Of course, if you lose 
your position you won’t be so eligible.” 

“Hard lines; you put me on the rack and 
punish me for being disabled. But I’ll have 
you yet, in spite of yourself.” 

“You may,” retorted Dolly, “ or, on the other 
hand, you mayn’t.” 

“I shall.” 

“ Peut-etre. Please to move, Mr. Farquhar, 
I want to get down.” 

“Wait a moment. A kiss first, if you 
please.” 

“I will not! Take your arm away.” 

“No,” said Farquhar, evenly. “I’m going 
to have one.” 

“I’ll never give it you.” 

“ I’ll take it, then.” 

“ Do you think this is the way to make me 
have you?” 


107 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


“I do; a woman’s never mistress of herself 
till she’s been mastered by a man.” 

“Don’t apply your aphorisms to me, if you 
please; I’m not like the women you know.” 

“ Aren’t you ? That’s where you make a mis- 
take, my girl; women never know themselves.” 

“I know myself well enough to be sure I’m 
not going to kiss you.” 

“Very possibly you aren’t; that’s not the 
point, though I should like you to. I’m going 
to kiss you.” 

“Let me go!” 

“One kiss, Dolly.” 

“Let me go!” Dolly repeated, struggling 
against him. She would have had a chance 
with any other man, for she was strong and 
supple and desperate; but Noel Farquhar’s 
arms closed round her like a snake’s constrict- 
ing folds. Though the cottage was within ear- 
shot, Dolly would have died sooner than call 
for help. She went on fighting, and when he 
drew her down she turned her face away. Use- 
lessly: Farquhar’s hand was laid against her 
cheek, and he bent her face to his. They looked 
into each other’s eyes: Dolly’s all rebellion, 
his all fire ; and then he kissed her. 

Once only; he had sufficient self-control to 
let her go when he had kept his word. Dolly 
pulled out her handkerchief to brush it away. 
io8 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


If she had had a knife she would have used it 
against him; yet behind her anger there was 
an unwilling respect. That immense strength 
which she could not defy, the strength of will 
as well as the strength of body, had left its 
impression. Farquhar was right in thinking 
that he had stamped his claims upon her 
memory. It was better that she should say, 
as she did, “ I hate you from the bottom of my 
heart,” than that she should part from him in 
a mood of calm and confident triumph. 

“Well, I love you,” he answered her, simply. 
“ There ; I beg your pardon. You’ll not forgive 
me, of course, but — well, there are times when 
I wonder if I’m mad.” 

“ You’ve made that excuse before; try some- 
thing fresh.” 

“ Did I ? It’s the truth. Dolly, you — ” He 
put up his hand over his eyes. “ Sheer madness ; 
or say I’m drunk. Dolly, what — what eyes 
you’ve got!” 

That was the last she heard from him that 
night. They parted, he taking a footpath to 
The Lilacs. He forgot his bicycle, and Dolly, 
seeing it, wheeled it down to Fanes to the safe 
custody of the tool-shed, not without some pride 
in an affection which could make a man oblivious 
of a very handsome, free - wheeled, Bowden- 
braked, acetylene-lamped, silver-plated, thirty- 
109 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


guinea Singer. At that hour Lucian’s chances 
were poor. 

“Where have you been?” was Bernard’s 
greeting when she came into the parlour. 
“Merton’s been here, and left a note for you.” 

“Did you see him in those slippers?” ex- 
claimed Dolly, pointing at the purple cross- 
stitched pansies which spread their blossoms 
over Bernard’s instep. Bernard looked at them 
himself. 

“They’re all right; they haven’t got any 
holes,” he said. 

“ I’m sure gentlemen don’t wear such things. 
In the evening they wear — they wear pumps.” 

“They may wear pumps or they may wear 
buckets,” Bernard responded. “ I guess I don’t 
much care. Old Merton wears slippers, for 
I’ve seen ’em on him. You open the letter 
and see what Mrs. Merton says — if she writes 
so that you can understand her, that is.” 

Dolly perused the note, written in a random, 
spidery fashion upon hand-made paper. “She 
wants us to dine there on Thursday,” she said, 
tapping her lips with the paper in a thoughtful 
manner. 

“Thursday? I shall be at Swanborough 
market.” 

“Dinner means eight o’clock in the evening; 
you’ll be home then.” 


no 


LOVE IN CHIEF 

“Oh, I forgot,” said Bernard. “Shall you 
accept?” 

Dolly did not reply, but continued to tap her 
lips. Mrs. Merton had been at the pains of 
mentioning her other invited guests. Present- 
ly Dolly said, “Bernard.” 

“Well.” 

“ Pve had two offers of marriage to-day.” 

“ I’m glad Farquhar’s come up to the scratch. 
I didn’t want to have to thrash him. But who’s 
the other?” 

“ Lucian de Saumarez.” 

“Him!” exclaimed Bernard. “Dolly, I’d 
take him; I like him.” 

“ Oh, I know, I know ; so do I. But he hasn’t 
a penny.” 

“ He’d take you about and show you things.” 

“Quite so; out’ of a third-class window. I 
don’t care for that.” 

“You aren’t going to have that Farquhar 
chap?” 

“I’ve not quite made up my mind.” 

“Well, you’ll. be a fool if you choose him,” 
said Bernard, returning to the Daily Telegraph; 
and human nature is so constituted that at that 
moment Dolly would have accepted Farquhar 
on the spot, had he been present. 

The clock struck nine. Dolly got up, ex- 
tended her arms above her head, and yawned. 


Ill 


LOVE IN CHIEF 

“Oh, I am sleepy,” she said. “Good-night, 
Bernard.” 

“’D-night,” answered Bernard, deep in the 
finance news. 

Dolly moved towards the door; then, a cer- 
tain thought crossing her mind, she came to 
Bernard’s chair and bent her beautiful head. 
“Give me a kiss, Bernie.” 

Somewhat surprised, Bernard complied. 

“ Do you like kissing me, Bernard ?” 

“M’yes. I don’t mind it. Why?” 

“Ah!” said Dolly, and lighted her candle for 
bed. 


IX 


WE TOOK SWEET COUNSEL TOGETHER 

L ucian was a poor sleeper, hard to lull and 
^ easy to rouse, with a habit of waking at 
four in the morning and reading novels in 
bed; his good nights had six hours’ sleep, his 
bad nights none. As a young man, he had in- 
nocently done his best to acquire the chloral 
habit, but years had taught him wisdom; his 
present panacea was bromide of potassium, of 
which, at times, he took a surprising quantity. 
But he shunned it whenever he could. 

Excitements in the day usually entailed sleep- 
lessness at night. After Dolly refused him Lu- 
cian was not surprised to find himself broad 
awake at one o’clock in the morning, with every 
prospect of remaining so. But the dark hours 
had long ceased to seem interminable ; he lighted 
the gas, enshrouded himself in a gorgeous dress- 
ing-gown, in whose gay colours he took an 
artless pleasure, and devoted his mind to the 
Golden Novelettes, at a penny a number Since 
Lucian’s last illness, Farquhar slept in the 

113 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


dressing-room adjoining, and usually left the 
communicating door ajar; but Lucian had wise- 
ly shut it early in the evening, and was blest 
in solitude. 

Towards dawn a voice came through that 
closed door, repeating the very name which 
was running in Lucian’s thoughts. “Dolly, 
Dolly!” Lucian took it for the creature of his 
brain, and thought with joy that now he might 
legitimately take some bromide; but it came 
again, and was this time coupled with epithets 
which had never crossed Lucian’s mind, still 
less his lips. He divined that something was 
wrong with Farquhar, and slid off his bed to 
see, taking a candle. Farquhar lay on his back, 
restlessly muttering, between sleep and delirium ; 
his face was flushed and his skin dry. ‘ ‘ Fever, ” 
said Lucian, and sat down to watch. 

Fever ravings are not commonly coherent, nor 
do patients, except in books, relate at length 
the stories of their lives ; all that Lucian learned 
was some strange oaths, besides the fact that 
Farquhar wanted water. He supplied that de- 
sire liberally, and presently had the satisfaction 
of seeing Farquhar wake up and stare about 
him with the air of a man newly released from 
Incubus. 

“Fever, sonny?” said Lucian. “How did 
you pick up that?” 

114 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


“ In Africa. Yes, I’m let in for it occasion- 
ally — curse the place! I’ve had a pretty bad 
turn, I reckon. Where’s that clinical?” 

The thermometer when consulted climbed to 
a hundred and three, and Farquhar decreed 
quinine. Hurrying off to prevent him in get- 
ting it, Lucian caught the tail of his robe in the 
fire-irons and dragged the fender half across the 
room before he could stop. He turned round 
and solemnly cursed it with a malediction ex- 
ceeding that of the Cardinal Lord Archbishop of 
Rheims. Farquhar flung a pillow to speed him 
on his way, and Lucian stepped backward into 
the water- jug. 

When this contretemps had been arranged 
with the help of the towels, Lucian sat on the 
bed — a quaint figure, with his bright eyes 
and brown face and draggle-tailed dressing- 
gown, the skirt of which he carefully spread 
over a chair to keep it away from his an- 
kles. 

“You ought to be in bed,” said Farquhar, 
impatiently; “not sitting up and playing the 
fool with me. Phew! how hot it is!” 

“ Oh, I’m not asking for any flowers on my 
grave,” said Lucian. “ I like doing it. And, 
look here, Farquhar; I don’t want to be inquisi- 
tive, but have you been making love to Miss 
what’s-her-name ?’ ’ 

115 


LOVE IN CHIEF 

Farquhar sprang up. “What’s it to you if 
I have?” 

“Something, sonny; because I happen to 
have been making love to her myself.” 

“Yes, confound you! Living here on my 
charity, and by way of return you make love 
to my girl on the sly.” 

“Farquhar, you shut up and lie down,” said 
Lucian, authoritatively. 

Tormented with fever and worse tormented 
with jealousy, midway between love and friend- 
ship, Farquhar hesitated; but he finished by 
obeying. He flung up his scarred hand over 
his eyes and breathed deeply, longing for cool- 
ness. “ Put that light out,” he said, “it drives 
me wild. I’ll be right enough to-morrow, but I’m 
ill now, and that’s the fact. 111! I’m parching !” 

Lucian snuffed out the candle neatly between 
his Anger and thumb, an inelegant trick which 
has the advantage of killing the smell. “You 
been popping the question?” he asked, and 
dropped his long cold Angers across Farquhar’s 
forehead. 

“Yes.” 

“Well?” 

“I’m to wait three months.” 

“What on earth for?” 

“She wants to consider my virtues — and 
yours.” 

ii6 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


“ Mine? Oh, I’m out of the running; I only- 
put myself forward as a pis-aller, in case you 
didn’t suit.” 

“ You’re not out of the running. I shouldn’t 
wonder if she took you. She says she likes 
you better than me.” 

“You sure of that?” 

“ She told me so to my face. I wished her 
in Hades.” 

“You’ve got it badly, sonny, very badly; 
but I’d rather you didn’t swear at her.” 

“Badly? Yes. But I’ll tell you what’s 
playing the mischief with me — I kissed her.” 

“She let you?” 

Farquhar laughed. “I took it.” 

“ Oho, my irreverent friend, you did, did you ?” 

“I did. Heavenly sweet it was, too; where 
do they get it, these girls, the power to drive 
a man sheer mad — hold on, will you? you 
dashed fool! That’s meant for me, De Sau- 
marez, not you.” 

“It’s a fact,” said Lucian, “that I never 
could resist a kiss myself. After all, there’s 
no harm in it, and it’s mighty agreeable when 
both parties are willing; though I take it 
Miss Dolly was not?” 

“She wasn’t. You’re right there.” 

“Upon my solemn honour, I wish I could 
thrash you!” 

117 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


A scratch and a spurt of white flame: Far- 
quhar had struck a lucifer. The outleap of 
light showed Lucian’s unguarded face and was 
gone. 

“My God!” said Farquhar, “and it’s the 
truth!” 

Lucian got up, went into his own room, and 
shut himself in. An instant later there shone 
again the lighted parallelogram of the open 
doorway with his figure black against it, as he 
came stoically back to his place on the bed. 
Farquhar said through the darkness, “I’ll be 
damned if you shall get her.” 

“I’ll be damned if you shall,” Lucian an- 
swered. 

Truth cleared the air, as it generally does. 
They had been in deadly jealousy the minute 
before, but now a spirit of Christian charity fell 
upon them. * 

“She’s safe to choose you,” Lucian argued. 
“ She’s as ambitious as she can stand, and look 
at me! I don’t know which is more invalid, 
my health or my prospects.” 

“ Well, I won’t be taken for my money. You 
see here: didn’t you say you could model and 
carve? I’ve just bought a granite-quarry in 
the Ardennes, and I’ll put you in as managing 
partner, and in three months you’ll be talking 
differently.” 


ii8 


LOVE IN CHIEF 

“ I bet you a shilling you’ll go bankrupt if 
you do!” 

“ Betting’s contrary to Christian principles.” 

They both laughed, and then Lucian said: 
“ Seems to me you rather enjoy shamming vir- 
tuous, you consummate old humbug!” 

“I do; hadn’t you foimd that out?” 

“ I can believe virtue comes easier when it’s a 
vice,” said Lucian, meditatively; “ but it strikes 
me very forcibly, sonny, that patient continu- 
ance in well - doing has undermined your prin- 
ciples. You’d feel pretty awkward at going to 
the deuce.” 

“ Would I ? If I had that girl in my power, 
I’d be handy enough.” 

“I deny it; but let that pass. Anyhow, if 
you had me in your power you wouldn’t lift 
a finger against me.” 

“ If you got between me and her — ” 

“You’d say, ‘Confound you, my children!’ 
and bite your thumb at us.” 

“For my own sake and not yours, then; I 
never did an unselfish thing yet.” 

“ Oh, you are a liar,” said Lucian. “ Why do 
you tell such lies? And, look here; I’ve some- 
thing serious to say to you. I won’t put up 
with being told I live on your charit}^ not even 
when you’re sick.” 

“ I shall vsay what I please.” 

9 119 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


“And I shall go when I please.’’ 

“ Oh, confound you!” said Farquhar; and he 
laughed and acquiesced. 

As has been said, Dolly was at this time, in- 
clining towards Farquhar, but an episode of 
the next week set the rivals even again. She 
and Bernard accepted Mrs. Merton’s invita- 
tion. She bought a book on etiquette and 
studied it, but was nervous, nevertheless. 
Bernard also studied the book, because he 
wished to avoid blunders, but he remained per- 
fectly composed; a point illustrating the radi- 
cal difference between their characters. Ber- 
nard took in to dinner a pretty, clever, well- 
bred, well-dressed girl of five-and-twenty, who 
had heard his story, was impressed by his looks, 
and took an interest in him, as she told Mrs. 
Merton. She tried to draw him out and put 
him at his ease, and their conversation grew 
rather humourous ere she recognized her error. 

Dolly’s partner was a big, dark, heavy-feat- 
ured man, with a low, soft, monotonous voice 
and tired eyes. Hugh Meryon was Hugh Mer- 
yon to Dolly, and he was nothing more ; but at 
Monaco he was known as Gambling Meryon, 
for among gamblers his play was remarkable 
by reason of his extraordinary and fantastic 
luck. He was the son of a highly respectable 
120 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


dean, and had suffered a highly respectable 
education; but he was bom to gamble as the 
sparks fly upward, and gamble he did, sacrific- 
ing all to his passion. He loved the excitement, 
not the money won: like Fox, who declared 
that his favourite occupation was playing and 
winning, his second favourite playing and losing. 
His presence at Monks well was due to Mrs. 
Merton’s fondness for black sheep, mustard 
with mutton, and other things which she should 
not have liked. 

“ I hear De Saumarez was to have come to- 
night,” Meryon began, without preface, before 
the advent of the soup. “I’m awfully sorry he 
couldn’t, I wanted to see him again. Do you 
know him?” 

“ Do you know him ?” Dolly exclaimed, simul- 
taneously. 

“Oh yes; I used to know him pretty well, 
but I haven’t seen him for nine years. But 
he’s the sort of fellow one doesn’t forget; be- 
sides, I was there when his wife died.” 

“Did you know her? What was she like?” 

“Awfully delicate, and quite young and very 
pretty. De Saumarez was mad about her, 
waited on her hand and foot, though he wasn’t 
much good himself. You used to see him tak- 
ing her out in a bath - chair and dodging the 
stones for fear they should jolt her — I’m 

I2I 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


boring you !” Meryon was diffident, and always 
expected to be found a bore; he had taken 
fright now at his own fluency, and annoyed 
Dolly inexpressibly by trying to talk about the 
weather, which he could not do. It was sev- 
eral minutes before she got him on the track 
again. 

“What was wrong with Mrs. de Saumarez?” 

“ Consumption.” 

“He’s afraid of that himself now.” 

“Is he? I expect he’s caught it from her — 
doctors say you can, and he was always with 
her. But the queerest part of it all was the 
end.” 

“Yes?” said Dolly, softly. Meryon had for- 
gotten her, and she thought it safer to let him 
forget, lest he should shy again. The gam- 
bler went on, simply: 

“ He came in to me one night looking rather 
wild and asked me to play. I didn’t want to ; 
I didn’t want to clean him out with his wife sick, 
and I knew my next streak of luck was about 
due. And once I begin I can’t leave off — the 
cards won’t let you go till they’ve had their 
sport out. But he would have it. Ecart6 we 
chose; I could tell every card in every game 
we played, and that was fifty-three — but that 
wouldn’t interest you. Anyway, I’ve seen 
queer things in the cards, but never anything 
122 


LOVE IN CHiEE 


so queer as that night’s play. I dare say you’ve 
heard that gamblers say spades mean death. 
Well, the king of spades kept on haunting us, 
and every time the black suit showed I swept 
the board. He kept on doubling the stakes, 
and I — I lost my head, as I always do, so when 
we came to the end of the spell and counted up 
I found I’d won sixteen thousand of him; only 
fancy! He swore that Marguerite — his wife, 
you know — was provided for, but I didn’t be- 
lieve him, for he was just as if he were fey. So 
then he asked me to come in and see her and 
convince myself, and I said I would, then and 
there, though it was three in the morning. I 
was pretty queer, for the cards had got into 
my head, and I was counting the steps and mul- 
tiplying them by the stones on the pavement, 
and I was mad with myself besides, and I 
thought I might get her to take it back, or 
some of it. Well, he took me in and up; I 
didn’t know where he was going till he threw 
open a door, and there we were in her room, 
and there was she laid out on the bed, dead. 
Candles at the four comers, and flowers all 
about — I never shall forget it.” He shuddered 
and stopped. 

“ And Mr. de Saumarez ?” 

“ Oh, he was like a lunatic — talking to her — 
He’d put by money for the funeral ; that’s what 

123 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


he meant by saying she was provided for. He 
hadn’t ten shillings himself. I tried to get him 
to take some, but he went off after the funeral, 
and I didn’t see him again. I never have, till 
now. I swore I’d never touch a card again, 
after that.” 

“And did you keep your vow?” Dolly asked, 
not because she had much curiosity upon the 
subject; one is not greatly interested in the 
feelings of a phonograph. 

“Yes, till a girl I knew asked me to play — I 
couldn’t refuse her.” 

“Did she know of your promise?” 

“Yes, but she wanted me to play specially. 
You see, I had rather a name; my luck’s so 
queer. She was writing a book about it; be- 
sides, she didn’t quite understand.” 

“ And afterwards ?” 

“ Oh, afterwards, I just went on playing. It 
didn’t seem worth while not to, you know,” 
said the gambler, with his tired smile. 


X 


WAS THAT THE LANDMARK? 

A S a hostess Mrs. Merton possessed a pene- 
L trating amiability which could persuade 
the lioness to lie down with the lamb, and 
could temporarily repair rifts in the social lute 
so well that it would run up and down the 
social scale without any disconcerting discords. 
When she brought up her women guests after 
dinner, they gathered round the fire and gos- 
sipped like school-girls. Sitting next the man- 
tel-piece with her shoes on the tiled hearth, 
shielding her face with a peacock-feather fan, 
Bernard’s pretty partner was holding forth con- 
cerning flirtation. She had thin little features 
and a retrousse nose, and she lifted and moved 
her head like a bird ; her thick, curly fair hair 
was cut short ; her eyes were gray and clear, and 
not a little imperious. In dress she was so de- 
mure and simple that Dolly set her down as a 
great heiress, not discerning that her demure 
simplicity was of the kind that comes from 
Paris. 

125 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


“No. I detest flirtation,” she was saying. 
“ It is an appeal to the vulgarity of our 
natures. It may be fit for men, but not for 
women.” 

“ My dear girl,” drawled her vis-a-vis, a plain 
but well-dressed young matron with fine dark 
eyes: “you never set eyes on Hugh Mery on be- 
fore to-day, and you sat in the brambles with 
him the whole afternoon!” 

“ She was converting him,” said Ella Merton. 
“She belongs to the Anti - Gambling League, 
don’t you, Angela? and she had to gambol 
around him to lure him away.” 

“ Always think that people are like consols, 
they lose interest when they’re converted,” 
murmured the dark-eyed matron, whom Dolly 
recognized as the lady in the black frills. 

“Maud, don’t be flippant,” said Angela, not 
at all disconcerted. “ If you know Mr. Mer- 
yon, you must know that he absolutely can’t 
flirt. That’s why I like him.” 

“I like flirting,” said Maud; “it’s so des- 
perately interesting. Talking sense is such a 
desperate bore, you know. It’s all very well 
for you, my dear girl ; men ’ll listen to an angel 
that’s paid a visit to Worth. But with my sal- 
low complexion it’s simply suicidal.” 

“ Men who flirt are no better than city clerks 
who kiss their best girls under the mistletoe at 
126 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


suburban tea-parties,” said Angela, elevating 
her little pointed chin. 

“ Now, I like that kind of young man,” said 
Ella: “besides, they don’t exist. She won’t 
talk like this when she’s married, will she, 
Maud?” 

“I never shall marry,” Angela asseverated. 
“To decline a proposal is bad enough, but to 
accept one — horrible!” 

“ Don’t see where the horrors come in,” mur- 
mured Maud, placidly. “ I suppose my sensi- 
bilities aren’t fine enough. I’ve always en- 
joyed it.” 

“ I dislike the ceremony of kissing,” said An- 
gela, throwing down the gauntlet. 

“ It isn’t a ceremony, it’s one of the rites of 
women,” said Ella, dissolving into laughter. 

Angela laughed too. She was in earnest, but 
not to the extent of becoming a bore. “ I be- 
lieve in the rights of women,” she said. “ Don’t 
you agree with me. Miss Fane?” 

“ About kissing ?” said Dolly, “ I don’t think 
it matters much; a kiss means nothing.” 

Angela looked rather horrified; Maud Pri- 
deaux smiled behind her fan ; Mrs. Merton was 
frankly interested. “What a lovely original 
ideal” she said. “All the three- volume novels 
used to end with the first kiss. Lord Arthur 
saw sanctified snakes, and Lady Imogen felt 
127 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


the tide of love bearing her away and her hair 
came down. And in girls’ stories it’s the bell 
that rings down the curtain on the sacred scene. 
And you don’t believe in it?” 

“No,” said Dolly, speaking in her swift, 
straightforward way. “A kiss is a touch and 
nothing more, neither pleasant nor the reverse. 
What I should dislike would be to be kissed 
against my will.” 

“You’re quite a revolutionary. Miss Fane,” 
drawled Mrs. Prideaux. “ I sha’n’t let my hus- 
band talk to you.” 

“With your sallow complexion it would 
be simply suicidal,” Mrs. Merton agreed, 
smoothly. 

Maud Prideaux’ s cynicism was pointed by 
the fact that she and her husband were notori- 
ously devoted. 

“I’d trust Lai anywhere,” said Angela Lau- 
renson, half to herself. 

“Oh, Lai! but we all know that Lai’s per- 
fection. AVhen’s he coming, Angela ? I won- 
der you exist without him,” said Mrs. Pri- 
deaux. Angela coloured, but she stood her 
ground. 

“To-morrow, I expect,” she said. “I hoped 
he would be here to-night, but he said he might 
not be able to get off.” 

“ Then we shall have to be on our best be- 
123 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


haviour — Mrs. Prideaux was beginning, when 
the gentlemen, coming up, cut short the dis- 
cussion. 

In the solitude of her chamber, Dolly that 
night took her heart and mind to pieces, and 
diligently perquisited all their workings, pried 
into motives, dissected sensations, and probed 
like any surgeon. She wanted replies to two 
questions: first, why she was unnaturally in- 
different to kisses; second, whether she pre- 
ferred Lucian de Saumarez or Noel Farquhar. 
Her analysis left her little the wiser; she got 
few facts, because there were few to get. As 
Bernard would have accepted a kiss with un- 
affected composure, so Dolly in the same spirit 
could not understand the pother made about 
the matter; she was gifted with a masculine 
indifference, or, as Angela Laurenson would have 
phrased it, with no feminine modesty. Yet, 
when she turned to the second question, the 
thought of loving either suitor sent Dolly fly- 
ing to unapproachable snow-peaks of virgin 
coldness, where the foot of no man ever had 
trodden or ever would tread. Dolly married, 
loving and beloved, the mother of half a dozen 
children, would still have kept in her heart a 
shrine of vestal purity. Careless about the 
borders of her kingdom she might be, but the 
citadel was inviolable. She came out of her 
129 


LOVE IN CHiEP 

quest little the wiser, but with her mind made 
up. 

She turned on her pillow and slept soundly, 
till the dawn, blossoming like a golden rose be- 
tween the clouds, shone in upon her lying be- 
tween linen sheets which smelt of violets, with 
all her chestnut hair twisted into one thick 
plait. The light roused her, and she was up in 
a trice and splashing in her tub of rain-water; 
then dressing rapidly, rolling up her hair in a 
knot, fastening on her blue dress and her plain 
white apron : in twenty minutes she was ready. 
Down-stairs she went full ten minutes late, and 
annoyed with herself and consequently with 
Maggie, who had been late too — for no reason, 
as Dolly told her, severely. Dolly laid the table 
for breakfast, with a pot of wall-flowers in the 
middle; she fetched the coffee-pot, and put on 
the milk to boil in an enamelled saucepan, and 
refilled the shining kettle — all Dolly’s pots and 
pans looked like silver. She sliced the bacon 
into the thinnest of thin rashers and set Maggie 
to fry it. Finally she went to the churn, where 
she should have been half an hour earlier, pray- 
ing that the butter might come quickly. She 
stood at the open window; the sun looked 
across the sill; a brown bee hummed in, seek- 
ing the wall-flowers; the bacon sizzled, the 
churn gurgled, and Dolly frowned. 

130 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


“Oo, miss,” said Maggie, pausing with the 
frying-pan aslant — “Oo, miss, there’s a gentle- 
man coming down the drive!” 

“Hold the frying-pan straight!” was Dolly’s 
stern reply. 

“ Oo, miss,” said the irrepressible one, staring, 
wide-eyed, “but he’s coming to the window, 
and it’s — ” 

“ Go on with your work!” said Dolly, in such 
a tone that Maggie went on. A shadow fell 
across Dolly’s hands. 

“ Good-moming, Sister Dolly,” said Lucian 
de Saumarez, leaning his elbows on the sill. 

“ Don’t call me that; I’m not a Roman Cath- 
olic,” said Dolly, not too graciously. 

“Nor I, praise the pigs!” 

“Why, do you dislike them so?” 

“I hate the doctrine of confession and the 
system of spiritual directors,” said Lucian, with 
unusual emphasis. “ I call it morally degrad- 
ing — however, I didn’t come here to talk theolo- 
gy. Is the agrarian barbarian anywhere about ? ’ ’ 

“ Bernard ’ll be in to breakfast at half -past 
seven, if you mean him.” 

“Then I guess I’ll wait. Hullo, Maggie; 
how’s the headache?” 

“Teethache, sir,” said the delighted Maggie, 
dropping a courtesy. “ They’re nicely, thank 
you, sir.” 

131 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


“Maggie, go and dust the parlour; I’ll see to 
the bacon,” said Dolly. Maggie retired quite 
crestfallen and sad. 

“ Why did you send the child off ? She wasn’t 
doing any harm,” said Lucian. 

“I’ll call her back and go myself, if you want 
to talk to her.” 

“I don’t, I don’t; you know I don’t. But 
why are you so cross?” 

“ Because I was late,” said Dolly, candidly, 
and laughed, and recovered her temper. “ Why 
weren’t you at the Mertons’ last night? Mrs. 
Merton said she asked you.” 

“ I was looking after old Farquhar; he’s been 
seedy.” Dolly’s lip curled. “Fact, I assure 
you. He had a touch of fever the night before 
last, and raved about you like Old Boots.” 

“ I should have thought that as a literary 
man you might find a better simile. I met a 
friend of yours there — Mr. Meryon.” 

“What? Gambling Meryon? You don’t 
say!” exclaimed Lucian. “ I’ll look him up. I 
haven’t seen him since he won sixteen thou- 
sand off me at a sitting. Lordy I what a getting 
down-stairs that was!” 

“So he told me.” 

“Did you hear the whole thing?” 

“Yes.” 

“What, about Marguerite?” 

132 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


“Yes/' 

“Ah!” said Lucian, and whistled a few notes. 
“Well?” 

“I don’t know what you mean,” said Dolly, 
conscious that his bright inquisitive eyes were 
studying her face. 

“ Does it make any difference?” 

“No. Yes,” said Dolly. “I am very, very 
sorry.” 

“If I’d thought you’d take it that way,” 
said Lucian, swinging himself up to a seat on the 
sill, “I’d have given you the whole history 
myself, and made it most awfully pathetic. I 
bet Meryon didn’t pile it on half strong 
enough.” 

“You’re perfectly callous!” 

“ My dear good girl, it’s nine years ago,” said 
Lucian, “and there’s no sentiment about me, 
at my age. Hullo! whom have we here?” 

Dolly looked up from the chum and saw a 
stranger coming up the path. He was a young 
man of six or seven and twenty, tall, fair, slen- 
der, very good-looking, and most correctly 
dressed. At first glance Dolly saw a resem- 
blance to her last night’s acquaintance, An- 
gela Laurenson. He had the same fair hair, 
the same dark-grey eyes, and the same delicate 
and colourless type of features, though his were 
more regular, his nose in particular being ac- 

133 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


curately Greek ; but the likeness appeared only 
in the outward mould, Angela’s alertness being 
replaced by an air of languid tranquillity. He 
was carrying his bag and a gold-headed cane, 
and seemed to find the cane alone quite as much 
as he wished to support. 

“I beg your pardon,” he said; “could you 
direct me to The Hall?” 

“ Go back to our gates and turn to the right, 
straight on till you come to four cross-roads; 
take the left-hand road up the hill, and you 
will see The Hall on your right, a white house 
among fir-trees,” said Dolly, who had the mas- 
culine power of concise explanation. 

“About how far is it?” 

“Two miles and a quarter.” 

“Thanks very much,” said the stranger, 
with a resigned air, preparing to go. 

“Been walking far?” inquired Lucian, who 
had not failed to notice the dust on his boots. 

“From Wembome. I missed my train and 
could get no cab,” said the stranger, mention- 
ing a junction twelve miles away. 

“Why, man, you must be dog-tired! Have 
you had any breakfast?” 

The stranger smiled and shook his head. 

“We shall be very glad if you will come in 
and share ours. It is ready now,” said Dolly, 
simply. 


134 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


“Thanks very much. I am particularly 
grateful, but I’m afraid I can’t wait.” 

“Have some cider; I can recommend it,” 
said Lucian, hospitably. 

“Or a glass of milk,” suggested Dolly, ma- 
ternally careful of his health. 

“You are very good,” said the stranger. “I 
am rather thirsty.” 

“You’ll have some cider, then?” 

“No, no cider, thanks. But I should very 
much like the milk.” 

Dolly went away to fetch it, and the stran- 
ger’s eyes followed her with involuntary ad- 
miration. 

“What a confounded nuisance these Wem- 
bome trains are!” said Lucian, who knew the 
time - table considerably better than the por- 
ters at the station. “They leave you two 
minutes to catch your connection, and then 
make the main-line train half an hour late!” 

“ I could have caught mine,” said the stran- 
ger, with the hint of a smile, “ if I had chosen 
to run for it. But it was such a fag, you know. ’ ’ 

“You like walking twelve miles better than 
running twelve yards?” 

“I don’t know that I put it to myself in 
that form,” said the stranger; “but I own that 
I don’t like hurrying. I could take my time 
over the twelve miles, you see.” 

135 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


“You’ve done it in pretty good time,” said 
Lucian. “Three hours, or less.” 

“Nearer eight, I fancy.” 

“You came by the early train?” 

“No, by the late.” 

“ Ye towers o’ Julia!” was Lucian’s irrelevant 
comment on this admission. 

“ I have an idea that I got lost in the dark,” 
explained the stranger. “I seemed to meet 
the same duck -pond several times. Thank 
you very much. I am immensely obliged to 
you.” He took from Dolly’s hand the warm 
and foaming milk, drank it, and went on his 
way, walking, as Lucian now noticed, slightly 
lame, but gracefully still, as he went up the 
steep, stony path. Dolly said, watching him 
with softened eyes, as she sometimes watched 
Lucian: “He looks tired to death. I am sure 
he is not strong.” 

“Maternal spirit! You were born to be a 
nurse, Dolly.” 

“No. I never want to nurse women or 
children, but I am sorry for men, especially 
when they are plucky, as he is. I wonder who 
he can be?” 

“So do I,” said Lucian. “I’d also like to 
know why he shied so violently at the notion 
of cider. I dare say we shall hear.” 

They left off talking by common consent. 

136 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


The entrance of the stranger had checked and 
turned their thoughts, and, strangely enough, 
seemed to dislocate their simple and friendly 
relation. Dolly took out her butter, pulled 
down her sleeves, and turned her attention to 
the bacon. When she broke silence it was to 
speak of a fresh subject, one which she had not 
meant to broach that morning, though it had 
been on her mind since the night before. 

“ Mr. de Saumarez, will you take a message 
from me to Mr. Farquhar?” 

“ With all my heart, only I’ve a kind of idea 
that he’d rather you told him yourself.” 

“ No, but I would not. I don’t wish to see 
him again for the present. I don’t wish to see 
him for three months.” 

“Three months!” 

“Yes.” 

“That’s a long time, Dolly.” 

“Not long for what I want to do.” 

“ Make up your mind ?” 

“Yes.” 

“Can’t see why you shouldn’t do that now. 
Farquhar’s what I should call eligible building- 
ground; you might erect a cathedral on him, 
or you might run up a slave-market; anyhow, 
he’ll be what you make him, Dolly.” 

“ I certainly sha’n’t make anything of him 
if you go on praising him. You ought to 

137 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


know that praise is the strongest of disquali- 
fications ” 

“You’re an unreasonable being. If you 
don’t see him, how do you think you’re going 
to know your own mind better three months 
hence than now?” 

“I’m coming to that. I don’t want to see 
him; but if he cares to write to me I’ll answer 
his letters. That’s what I want you to tell 
him.” 

“Glory!” said Lucian. “Then while he’s 
away I’ll walk in daily and praise him up to 
the skies. I think I read my title clear to a 
gay time.” 

“ I want you to go, too,” said Dolly. 

“Me? Oh, I’m a harmless individual; you 
needn’t do that.” 

“ But I want to put you both on an equality 
and judge fairly.” 

“Ah, but you’ll never marry me.” 

The sincerity of conviction was in Lucian’s 
voice ; Dolly had that one fleeting glimpse into 
his fundamental creed. While he lived he 
would never give up hope, but behind it he 
accepted the certainty that no hope of his 
would ever find fulfilment ; such indelible char- 
acters had failure written upon his spirit. Dolly 
pitied him so much that she was almost ready 
to contradict his creed by the promise of her- 

138 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


self. Almost, but not quite; the shadow of 
the change which she had felt that morning 
interfered to prevent her. Better to wait, she 
thought; better to deliberate and weigh, not 
act on the impulse of a mood. She did not 
speak, and Lucian’s golden chance passed. 

“I don’t know whether I shall marry you 
or not,” she said. “ I’ll write to you both; and 
at the end of the three months I’ll let you know, 
if you still care. There’s Bernard.” 

It was not Bernard, however; Bernard was 
very late that morning. For the space of half 
an hour those two, who felt that their interview 
should have been neatly rounded off by the 
entrance of a third person, were forced to make 
conversation in the regions of small talk. Real 
life is not often appropriate in its arrange- 
ment of incidents. Eight o’clock struck before 
Bernard walked in, large and calm and hun- 
gry. Lucian disburdened himself of his mes- 
sage, which was merely an invitation to play 
billiards. 

“I guess Farquhar must be pretty sick of 
teaching me,” said Bernard, cutting himself 
a round off the loaf; after which he supplied 
Dolly’s needs. “ But I suppose he knows his 
own business best. I say, did you see that 
girl who took me in to supper last night?” 

“Dinner, Bernard.” 

139 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


“Dinner, then. Did you see her?” 

“Yes, I did.” 

“Who was she?” asked Lucian. 

“Miss Angela Laurenson.” 

“Pretty girl, very smart, woman’s rights, 
little aristocrat; yes, I know. Go ahead. Co- 
lossus; what about her?” 

“ I guess the dude who ran me down’s her 
brother; I met him again this morning,” said 
Bernard; “that’s all.” 

“ Oh, what was he like?” 

“ Weedy looking chap in gray, with a drawl 
and a carpet-bag.” 

“ L. L. Laurenson, Esq., Royal Artillery, Dis- 
tinguished Service Order,” said Lucian. “ I 
know him, too, by name ; as you would if you’d 
ever talked to Angela Laurenson for two min- 
utes on end. She can’t keep him out of the 
conversation.” 

“Does she call him Lai?” Dolly asked, cu- 
riously. Lucian nodded. 

“ Well, I guess I talked to her for two hours 
on end,” said Bernard, cutting himself another 
slice from the loaf; “but she didn’t mention 
him.” 

“What did you talk about?” 

“Me,” said Bernard, “and her. Pass me a 
couple of eggs, will you, Dolly?” 


XI 


IN ARDEN 

T he breast of a wooded hill, leaning tow- 
ards water still as glass and green as mala- 
chite, confronted the Hotel des Boers, at Vresse- 
sur-Semois. Dark-green and silver, the valley 
lay below; a nightingale was singing in the 
dawn; and presently the gold eye of the sun, 
looking down through the high woods, shone 
on hills white with dew, spangling them with 
fiery drops, and changing into silver threads 
the little singing streams which tumbled down 
through bright - green dells to join the silent 
river. Mists cleared away like breath from a 
mirror, and there on the water a little lawny 
islet lay like an anchored dream ; they had been 
cutting the hay, and from the grey swaths 
floated up the odours of Eden. Thus rose Lu- 
cian’s first day in Arden, and he was up to see 
the dawn. 

Farquhar had gone on some weeks before 
to complete his arrangements. Having been 
brought up by his Scotch relations near Aber- 
141 


LOVE IN CHIEF 

deen, he knew a good deal about granite, and 
on his first visit of inspection had pointed out 
that in texture, grain, and colour the stone of 
the Petit-Fays quarry resembled the valuable 
red granite of Peterhead. The owner simply 
laughed him to scorn, and went about lauding 
his scrupulous honesty at the expense of his 
sense in a fashion which afforded a subtle grati- 
fication to the person praised. Nevertheless, 
Farquhar persisted in buying the quarry, and 
soon proved himself right. At once he brought 
over new, modem machinery, and sent for 
skilled workmen from England. His design 
was to supply the Belgian market, which had 
heretofore been satisfied with Scotch granite. 
Paving-stones, better finished than those turn- 
ed out by the primitive quarries of the Meuse ; 
polished shop - fronts for the new suburbs of 
Brussels, especially the splendid streets near 
the Boulevard d’Anspach: these he could ten- 
der at lower prices than the Scotch dealers, for 
in Belgium labour is cheap and the cost of trans- 
port light, especially on the state railways. For 
the present he retained his English workmen, 
with the intention of replacing them by Bel- 
gians so soon as they had learned the niceties 
of their trade ; and for this purpose he had al- 
ready formed classes for instruction in polish- 
ing and sculpture. His manager, an American 
142 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


named Charlesworth, had the teaching of them, 
and Lucian had promised to give his services as 
well. 

The quarry, which was already in full work, 
lay behind the bend of the Semois, just out of 
sight of the hotel. In Belgium one looks for 
the grubbily picturesque, for endless variations 
on the themes of dirt and art, rather than for 
the beauty of rock and wood and river; yet 
here in the south the streams run through the 
loneliest, loveliest valleys, abandoned to their 
kingfishers and great butterflies, and musical 
with little springs which run among the hills. 
The quarries are hardly eyesores. The approach- 
es of Farquhar’s were even picturesque; the 
intractable granite, interrupting with its fire- 
scarred shoulders the suave contour of the 
hills, had scattered rocks across the stream, 
which reared in a white ruff round each and 
raced away with plenty of noise and foam. 
The stately cliff which the quarrymen were 
labouring to destroy rose up behind from among 
trees. Lucian, who never loved his bed, by six 
o’clock had had his breakfast and was standing 
on the verge, looking down into the pit. It 
was unbeautiful ; blackened like a hollow tooth 
by the smoke of the blasting, swarming with 
midget figures, the rocks fell away down to the 
depth, where the blocks of granite were be- 

143 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


ing split up for convenience of loading. The 
graceful, deliberate crane let sink its trucks 
to be filled, and as slowly raised each to its ap- 
pointed bourn ; the noise of the steam crusher, 
where the chips were being ground to powder 
for cement, went on continuously ; the boring- 
machine was also at work; and four or five 
men, splitting up a large block of granite, were 
playing “The Bluebells of Scotland “ by striking 
on drills of different tones. 

Presently the whistle of a siren silenced the 
music, and with one accord the quarry men left 
their work and took shelter. Five minutes 
later, a detonation and strong reverberations 
shook the cliff; and when the smoke cleared, 
Lucian saw fresh boulders lying displaced from 
their bed, and a fresh scar graven upon the 
corrugated walls. So the work went on. Dan- 
ger was always present ; but the danger of the 
quarry is not like the loathsome sleuth-hound 
of disease which tracks down the potter and 
the worker in lead. It is a sudden and violent 
peril, which leaps out like a lion and strikes 
down its victim in the midst of life. Day by 
day the quarryman deliberately stakes against 
death the dearest of man’s gifts; it is not sur- 
prising that for other stakes he is a gambler, 
too. 

There was an accident even as Lucian watch- 
144 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


ed. A young Belgian neglected to obey the 
warning of the siren, and was overtaken. After 
the fumes and smoke had cleared, his mates 
went down and found him lying unconscious, 
little injured, but stupefied by the poisonous 
gases which the explosion had set free. A 
crowd came together, Farquhar among them, 
barely distinguishable by the eye, though the 
tone of his voice came up with surprising clear- 
ness. The lad was carried away, and work 
went on again ; but Lucian was now all on fire 
to join the toilers and take his share in their 
risks. Most excitable men fall disinterestedly 
in love with danger at least once in their lives ; 
Lucian himself had done so before, and had 
stopped a mad dog scare by picking up in his 
arms the supposed terror, an extremely de- 
pressed but perfectly sane fox-terrier. For 
this piece of uncalculated bravado he had con- 
sistently and correctly disclaimed the title of 
heroism, of course in vain. He turned now 
and marched gaily down the path, with the 
intention of falling to work at once ; but mid- 
way down he encountered Farquhar, with 
Charles worth, the quarry - master, and was 
stopped for introduction. 

Smith Charlesworth was a huge man who 
would have balanced Bernard Fane upon a 
see-saw; he dwarfed Farquhar’s excellent pro- 
US 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


portions. His bronzed countenance might have 
been hammered out of the granite which he sur- 
veyed, without any great skill on the part of 
the craftsman ; but it inspired confidence. His 
slow, soft voice and deliberate movements 
built up the notion of strength ; and Lucian had 
not heard him speak two sentences before he 
knew that he liked him. Here was a man 
whose calm courage was not at the mercy of 
his nerves; a man also of stem rectitude, by 
nature narrow, but broadened into tolerance by 
experience. 

“Yes, it’s a bad business about that young 
chap,” he was saying: “but what can you ex- 
pect? It was his own fault. They’ve got in- 
dustry but no method. Here’s Mr. Farquhar 
thinks they’re going to turn out Ai copper- 
bottomed sculptors, but I guess he’ll find his 
error. They haven’t got it in ’em.” 

“ Well, we’ve just got to put it in,” said Far- 
quhar, good-humouredly. He was on his best 
behaviour, saying not a word that was gen- 
uine, and consequently his conversation was 
dull. 

“What do you think of the quarry?” Lu- 
cian asked. 

“First rate.” Charlesworth stepped to the 
edge of the pit and stood there calm as a rock, 
with the square toes of his big boots projecting 
146 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


into the air. He pointed to the dark buttress 
behind which the boring-machine was at work. 
“See that? That’s the finest sample I’ve seen 
out of Scotland. You mark my words; in five 
years you’ll be sending shipments right out to 
the States, and they’ll take all you’ve got and 
ask for more. Mr. Farquhar’s begun the right 
way ; he’s put plenty money in the concern and 
he’ll take plenty out — always providing we 
don’t get sent to kingdom come first.” 

^ Farquhar laughed at this last idea, but Lu- 
cian asked an explanation. The American 
impressed him as a very careful speaker, not 
given to random words. 

“ Well,” said Charlesworth, stroking his chin, 
“these chaps here don’t take to your Britishers, 
and that’s the bed-rock fact.” 

“What’s going to happen, do you think?” 

“ I guess we shall be running into some dirt 
before long.” 

“Most pacific nation in the world, the Bel- 
gians,” said Lucian, cheerfully. “Been fought 
over so many times that they haven’t a 
ha’porth of kick left in them.” 

“ Yes ; good square fighting’s not in their line. 
It’s the stab in the dark they go in for,” said 
the American, drily. “ Two-thirds of the conti- 
nental anarchists hail from Brussels. I’ve run 
Dutchmen and I’ve run Kanakas, and I guess 
147 


3 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


I can make out to put up with these stiff-necked 
Britishers of yours; but the Belgian mongrels 
are enough to make an oyster sick. However, 
the crew’s not my affair; and if Mr. Farquhar’s 
satisfied, why, so am I. And I hope I may be 
wrong.” 

Charlesworth was no croaker; having given 
his warning he left the matter, and they went 
down into the quarry talking of possibilities 
rather than of presentiments. Lucian could 
not see the grounds of his forebodings ; the men 
seemed friendly, both with the manager and 
between themselves, and they were certainly all 
that is gracious to him personally. Lucian 
thought in French when he spoke to a French- 
man. 

They stayed all day at the quarry, taking 
lunch in the engine-room on slim little sausages 
and beer. Later on, Lucian assisted at the 
modelling class, acting as interpreter for Charles- 
worth, who could not always find the right 
technical terms. He was a strict master, ex- 
treme to mark what was done amiss. “ I’ve no 
opinion of soft jobs,” he said to Lucian, who had 
stood listening to what seemed a very harsh 
rebuke for a very small fault on the part of an 
elderly English workman who had taken Lu- 
cian’s fancy. “Keep them up to the mark, 
that’s my motto. I never will tolerate scamp- 
148 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


ing. Give me good work and I’ll give you good 
wages; but if a man don’t handle the tools the 
way he ought, why, he can go! and good rid- 
dance, say L” 

“That’s all right for you, with your con- 
founded meticulous correctitude and exactitude, 
my friend,” said Lucian, still vicariously sore; 
“but how would you feel if you knew that 
the worst work they put in was head and 
shoulders better than the best work you put 
in?” 

“I guess I should turn to and take a hand 
at something I could do.” 

“And suppose you were incompetent all 
round?” 

Charlesworth turned and looked at him. 
Lucian, laughing, appeared hardened and in- 
souciant, but the American was slow to judge. 
“Well, I don’t say I’m right,” he said; “and 
I don’t say you’re wrong. But I couldn’t do 
with your way, and I guess you couldn’t do 
with mine.” 

“There are nine-and-sixty ways of con- 
structing tribal lays, and every single one of 
them is right,” quoted Lucian, coughing. 

“You toddle home; the siren will go in half 
an hour, and this air’s bad for your cough,” 
said Farquhar, coming up and putting his hand 
on Lucian’s shoulder. 

149 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


‘■'Shut up, you prophet! you thing of evil! 
I haven’t coughed once this day.” 

“There 3^ou err; I’ve heard you twice, my- 
self.” 

“Well, that isn’t once, is it?” 

They laughed, and Farquhar shook him by 
the shoulder, apostrophizing him as a fool. 
“It’s reeking damp here by the water; you’ll 
be laid up if you aren’t careful.” 

“You want me to see your dinner’s ready, 
that’s what it is,” said Lucian, going. Charles- 
worth looked at Farquhar. “Sick?” he asked, 
with a backward nod. 

“No constitution at all.” 

“ I should put a bullet through my head if it 
was me,” said Charlesworth, briefly. “This 
world’s not made for incompetents.” But, 
luckily for the peace of the quarry, Farquhar 
did not hear what he said. 

Lucian went to the Hotel des Boers and 
flirted with Laurette, the charmingly pretty 
maid, as he smoked on the veranda. He 
shared Dolly’s opinion that a kiss or two did 
not matter to any one, and he carried his views 
into practice, which she did not. This was 
not heroic, but Lucian had many commonplace 
failings which disqualified him for the post of 
hero. He was still living at Farquhar ’s ex- 
pense ; he had brought into this present under- 

150 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


taking nothing but his knowledge of modelling. 
Yet he accepted his position and was in the 
main content. The timely sale of a couple of 
short stories had permitted him to buy the 
clothes which he was wearing and to pay his 
journey over, otherwise he would have eu- 
phemistically borrowed from Farquhar. Little 
debts such as that galled him; but the main 
burden sat lightly on his shoulders, which was 
well ; for, as he told himself with obstinate pride 
when visited by the pricks of self -contempt, he 
had consistently done his best and had failed 
not through his own fault. 

The evening set the pattern of many even- 
ings following. Charlesworth came in with 
Farquhar to dinner; he had been lodging at 
Petit-Fays, but now talked of transferring him- 
self to the hotel, which, though as primitive 
as the pious farmers whose name it bore, was 
certainly cleaner than they. The dinner made 
Farquhar sigh for the flesh-pots of England ; he 
permitted himself to be a bon-vivant, to tone 
down his excessive virtues. Sorrel soup, beef- 
steak which never grew on an ox, tongue 
stewed with cherries, and a baba made by the 
eldest son of the house, who was a pitissier; 
this was the menu. Now a baba is a kind of 
sponge-cake soaked in rum and sweet as 
saccharine: Charlesworth would not touch it, 
II 151 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


Farquhar ate a morsel and did not want any- 
more, but Lucian, with the whimsical appetite 
of an invalid, was only deterred from clearing 
the dish by Farquhar’s solemn assurance that 
it would make him tipsy. Such was their 
meal, finished off by a cup of excellently strong 
black coffee, which they drank on the veranda 
as they smoked and talked. The night was 
dark, still, and starry ; the huge, soft, shadowy 
hills shut out all wandering airs, and the river 
passed them silent, gleamless. But close beside 
them a wooden trough guided down the water 
of a spring which rose among the moss of the 
steep hill-orchard, and the loquacious little 
fount made an irregular sibilant accompaniment 
for their voices. Laurette’s young brothers, shy 
but friendly, hovered round the door listening 
to the strange foreign talking, anxious only to 
be allowed to be useful. The Ardennois are 
hospitable folk. 

Farquhar was thinking of building a small 
house; he had interviewed a local architect, 
who proffered him weird designs for a maisonette 
after the style of the Albert Memorial, with 
multitudinous tourelles and pinnacles picked 
out in red and white and blue, and liberally 
gilded. Refusing this gorgeous domicile, he 
was. beset with advice from Lucian and from 
Charlesworth, each of whom professed to know 
152 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


something about architecture ; though Lucian’s 
counsels recalled the wise saw that a little 
knowledge is a dangerous thing, especially in 
ceilings, and seemed likely to aflEord a modem 
instance of a castle in the air. The talk be- 
came more personal. They were all travellers : 
Lucian the most inveterate, for he had wan- 
dered the world across. Farquhar could speak 
familiarly of Africa ; Charlesworth of the States 
and the South Seas, where for several years he 
had traded with a schooner of his own, until 
a drunken pilot kept Christmas by sinking her 
off Butaritari, in the Gilberts. Charlesworth ’s 
voice softened when he spoke of the Islands, 
which had set their spell upon him; but there 
was little softness in it when he mentioned 
that pilot. His talk was deeply coloured by the 
sea, but he had when he chose the address of 
a gentleman. He was married, he said: had 
married a clever Boston girl, grown tired of high 
culture, who sailed with him till the Golden 
Horn met her watery fate, and who was now 
teaching school in California at a salary of 
two hundred dollars a month. She put by 
every cent she could spare, and he was doing 
the same, until they had saved enough to 
return to the South Seas. “ For,” said Charles- 
worth, “there’s nothing draws you like the 
Islands.” 


153 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


“Islands have a special fascination, I sup- 
pose,” said Lucian, thinking of Guernsey. 

“Yes, it’s right enough out here, but Eng- 
land’s the place for me,” said Farquhar, push- 
ing back his chair. “ Come to bed, De 
Saumarez; it’s time for all good little boys to 
turn in.” 

Lucian settled back into his seat. “Go 
away: I won’t be mussed up! I believe you’re 
simply thirsting to flesh your clinical on me.” 

“Not I. I’ve done enough nursing since 
December to last me my life.” 

“Very good for you,” said Lucian, lighting 
a fresh cigar. 

Farquhar watched his chance and snatched 
it. Lucian was up in a moment, and there was a 
scrimmage in which he did not conquer ; where- 
upon he lifted up his voice and wailed aloud, 
to the amazement of Charlesworth, who was 
not used to Lucian’s ways. “I want my 
cigar!” was the burden of his complaint, re- 
peated with variations. 

“Go to bed and you shall have it,” said 
Farquhar, laughing and wary. 

“Never!” 

“ You’re unreasonable. Why shouldn’t you ?” 

“I’ll be shot if I’ll give in to an arrogant 
brute like you ! Besides, I want to wait for the 
post.” 


154 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


“Oh, the post,” said Farquhar, with a 
singular change of tone. He dropped the 
cigar and sat down. He did not look at 
Lucian, but Lucian shot a glance at him, and 
both were silent. Charlesworth stared. The 
constraint lasted for a moment. Then, pat 
to the occasion, Laurette came out with the 
letters. Farquhar half rose and put out his 
hand, but she passed him by for Lucian. “ Pour 
monsieur.” The amazed Charlesworth saw 
rapidly varying expressions flit over both faces: 
anger, jealousy, triumph, rancour: and then 
Laurette, after rubbing her hand clean on her 
skirt, turned and held out to Farquhar the 
exact facsimile of Lucian’s small grey envelope. 
“ Et pour monsieur, encore une.” 

Farquhar took his letter, and Charlesworth 
took himself home. 


XII 


AND WILT THOU LEAVE ME THUS 

T here were eight young Laurensons, of 
whom the two youngest were Laurence 
Lionel, commonly known as Lai, and Angela. 
Angela was the only girl, and had been spoilt, 
or rather given her own way; but then, that 
way was always exemplary. She had done her 
best for all her brothers, she said, with pathos, 
yet Bertie still remained a dude and Harold 
still a fool, and with none of them had she 
succeeded save with Lai, who was a pattern of 
virtue. Angela bade him work for the army, 
enter Woolwich, and pass into the Royal 
Engineers; he obeyed her by coming out first 
in his batch. After this they had a slight dif- 
ference of opinion, for Lai chose to enter the 
Royal Artillery and would not be dissuaded 
from it by all the accusations of laziness which 
his guardian angel hurled at his head. She 
did not know, and nobody else noticed, that 
a certain poor country parson’s son, who after 
patient toil had attained only the eighteenth 
156 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


place on the list, was by Lai’s retirement ele- 
vated among the lucky seventeen to be drafted 
into the Engineers — the only regiment where a 
penniless man can live on his pay. Lai’s choice 
remained a puzzle to Angela. But Lai was 
queer; she was sure that her deepest soundings 
never quite touched bottom. 

Lai entered at once upon a distinguished 
career. During the South African war he was 
twice mentioned in despatches, received the Dis- 
tinguished Service Order, and was never taken 
prisoner: three grand distinctions which made 
the guardian angel proudly preen her wings. 
She had cried herself to sleep every night of the 
first week after he sailed. In Somaliland he got 
enteric and was wounded in the foot; he was 
invalided home amid a blaze of glory with six 
months’ sick leave and another medal to hang 
beside the two which a liberal Conservative 
War Office had already bestowed for his ser- 
vices in Africa. He sustained the character 
of wounded hero with fortitude, but without 
enjoyment: Lai was modest. Admiration si- 
lenced him ; he had been more open with Ber- 
nard, a stranger who did not know him, than 
he had ever been with his sister. He made a 
vaguely impressive figure at Ella Merton’s 
garden-parties: a quiet, languid, fair-haired 
young aristocrat, always very correctly dressed, 

157 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


always courteous, always reticent. Maud 
Prideaux, who had names for everybody, hit 
off the Laurensons’ peculiarities to a nicety 
when she christened Angela On dit and her 
brother Cela va sans dire. 

Angela Laurenson had views; she had also a 
first-class dressmaker. These sentences are 
not gems from a German grammar, but the 
statement of correlated facts; the first would 
never have been in evidence but for the second. 
The temperance question, the rights of women, 
public scandals, and private fads were Angela’s 
happy hunting-grounds. She was member of a 
dozen associations, and corresponded with a 
dozen wooden-headed boards. She had chased 
the Protestant donkey to his home in a mare’s- 
nest. Sweeping into one condemnation of- 
fenders against manners and morals, she de- 
clined to know wicked noblemen, whitewashed 
ladies, grocery knights, and Chicago millionaires. 
In fact, her fair little thin face, her clear little 
imperious voice, her perfectly simple and simply 
perfect frocks were pretty widely known; and 
in spite of certain errors, she was respected. 

In the fore-front of her battles she always 
posted Lai. He was not allowed to smoke. 
He would have been enrolled in the Ladies’ 
League had that been possible. He was con- 
strained to become what in temperance language 
158 


LOVE IN CHIEF 

is called an abstainer : which was especially hard 
on Lai, who inherited a dehcate critical taste in 
wines together with an ancestral cellar. But 
he disliked these things less than being dragged 
to meetings and forced to sing “Dare to be a 
Daniel ’ ’ upon a platform. Lai hated publicity : 
not the lion, but the lookers-on, seemed to him 
the real test of Daniel’s courage. If anything 
could have held him back from distinguishing 
himself in action, it would have been the fear of 
reward. 

Now one day at lunch the story of Mrs. 
Searle and her copper came up, and was dis- 
cussed in all its ramifications, down to the 
illness of Mrs. Searle’ s baby and Noel Far- 
quhar’s political prospects. Angela, who was 
present, took it into her pretty little head 
that duty called her to visit the sick child. 
Like most city-bred girls, she expected the 
country lanes to be haunted by drunken 
tramps, and was nervous of walking alone; but 
Maud Prideaux vowed that babies were beyond 
her charity, and Mrs. Merton, who was en- 
thusiastically consulting planchette in a comer 
with a serious young man, professed a bad 
headache. Angela fell back on Lai; and, ac- 
cordingly, at three o’clock they were walking 
towards Burnt House, Lai irreproachable in 
grey, with lilies in his button-hole ; Angela, also 

159 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


in grey, a demure little Quakeress. The sky 
was in grey as well, and mist clung to the face 
of the earth like fine grey powder, dulling all 
colours. The flattened uplands round the black 
cottages were as dingy as a suburban street on 
a wet day. 

Mrs. Searle was at the new copper, trying 
to do the family wash ; but between the 
naughtiness of Randolph, aged thirteen months, 
the frettiness of Florry, aged twenty days, and 
her own health, she had not done much. She 
was not at first very gracious; poor people 
have their feelings, and the attitude of Angela, 
with her skirts unconsciously held very high 
to avoid contamination, suggested the super- 
cilious patronage of the lady bountiful. But 
Angela’s kindness was too homely to remain 
hidden under a Paris hat; she soon received 
the story of Mrs. Searle’ s illness and the baby’s 
delicacy: “but we’re getting on nicely now,” 
the girl added, leaning against the copper and 
holding the brickwork to keep herself steady, 
the lovely, pathetic brown eyes uncomplainingly 
lifted to Angela’s. She said she had at first 
fed the baby on Brighton biscuit and boiled 
bread, beaten up in water. 

“Brighton biscuit?” said Angela, doubt- 
fully, looking, with no feeling but repulsion, at 
the purplish, spidery, open-mouthed creature 
i6o 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


in its tumbled clothes. “Is that good for it, 
do you think?” 

“Well, Miss Dolly she says give her milk 
and barley-water, but the milkman don’t 
come up here. So I tried her with the con- 
densed, and it’s wonderful how she’s got on 
since.” 

“I’ll tell the milkman to bring you up a 
gallon a day,”’ said Angela, with a small 
sigh relinquishing a silver blotting-book which 
she had coveted. “That will be enough for 
it, won’t it?” 

“Well, I’m sure you are kind — ” 

“And couldn’t you get a woman in to help 
you? You’re not fit to be doing your own 
work yet.” 

Then suddenly Mrs. Searle melted into tears, 
not for her own misfortunes, and poured forth 
the tale of her sister Hilda, who should have 
been her help, but had got into trouble. Not 
yet seventeen, very pretty, and now desperate, 
she was gone to a low public -house in Swan- 
borough. “ Mr. Searle he can’t get her to come 
away, and I can’t get so far, you see. And 
really, miss, some days I don’t know how to 
crawl about, my back is that bad ; only things 
has got to be done somehow. I did think 
Hilda would have kept straight. Or she might 
have stopped at home till my trouble was over. 

i6i 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


I told her as nobody would think the worse 
of her if it was just once, as you may say, and 
she kept herself respectable after; but there, 
you never know how to have girls, and off 
she goes, as bold as brass, and me so ill I 
couldn’t say nothing to her—” 

Angela sighed impatiently; none of her pet 
reforms touched Mrs. Searle’s case; no re- 
forms ever do. The celebrated last words of 
the poor woman who always was tired, who 
lived in a house where help was not hired, 
represent the aspirations of most cottage 
mothers, night by night, until the children 
are grown old enough to help them. Angela 
did her best; she promised a nurse, and left a 
half-crown; and then walked out upon Dolly 
Fane, who was talking to Lai. They were 
standing so close to the door that Angela knew 
Lai must have overheard Mrs. Searle’s story, 
and the colour came into her face as she took 
Dolly’s hand. She forgot to be surprised to 
find them acquainted until Dolly in her direct 
fashion told her of their early meeting; when 
Angela did not forget to feel annoyed. 

Nor was she better pleased when Dolly, en- 
tering the cottage, quieted Randolph and 
prescribed for the baby and put Mrs. Searle 
into a chair, proving herself efficient where 
Angela had just proved herself incapable. It 
162 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


was all done in innocence, and innocent, too, 
was Dolly’s laugh when she heard of the 
liberal provision of milk allotted for the baby, 
for Mrs. Searle had not mentioned the giver; 
nevertheless, Angela decided that she was not 
a nice companion for Lai. 

“We shall be late for tea, Lai,” she whispered, 
suggestively. 

“Miss Fane will be ready directly.” 

“Not for half an hour or so; I am going to 
finish these things in the copper,” said Dolly, 
appearing at the door in a large apron and 
with her sleeves rolled up. No inclement 
clouds could dim the brilliancy of her colour- 
ing; she was independent of sim and sky. 
But Angela became conscious that her own 
face looked drab, and that did not please 
her. 

“If you don’t mind walking home alone I 
think I’ll stay and help Miss Fane; these cans 
are very heavy,” said Lai, depriving Dolly 
of that she was carrying. 

“I do mind walking home alone, across all 
those fields!” 

“ It really is not lonely, Angela.” 

“But there are bulls in them!” 

“Oh no. Miss Laurenson, the cows have 
been driven home to be milked by now,” said 
Dolly, serenely; “you need not be alarmed. 

163 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


But I don’t want any help ; I hope Mr. Lauren- 
son won’t stay for me.” 

“I’ll take you as far as the high-road, then, 
and come back,” said Lai. 

Dolly put up her eyebrows and laughed 
softly. “I’m perfectly competent to do the 
work myself; these cans weigh nothing.” She 
held it out at arm’s-length and lightly put it 
down, rising again elastic from the burden. 

“You’re accustomed to the work, of course,” 
said Angela, dryly. 

“I am; we do our own washing at home.” 

“ If you want to be in by four, we had better 
start,” Lai interposed. 

“Good-bye,” said Angela, not offering her 
hand; was not Dolly’s wet? 

“Pray don’t come back, Mr. Laurenson; 
there are so many bad characters about the 
roads now; you might meet my brother Ber- 
nard!” Dolly retorted, with a faintly satirical 
accent. 

“I certainly shall,” said Lai, quietly. 

Between Burnt House and the high-road Lai 
received a full-length portrait of his miscon- 
duct; he listened, as his habit was, in silence. 
Angela soon tired of reproving a dummy. 
“Why don’t you say something?” she cried at 
last. 

“What do you want me to say?” 

164 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


“ Do you mean to go back to that girlV' 

“Certainly I do.” 

‘ ‘ O Lai !’ ’ said Angela. “ Oh, do you really ?’ ’ 

“I can’t leave her with that work on her 
hands.” 

“Yes, but — Lai, I don’t like walking alone!” 

“I’m sorry, Angela, but I promised.” 

“There’s Mr. Fane,” cried Angela, in a 
note of relief, and she hurried to meet him. 
Bernard in his working clothes was some- 
thing of a shock to her nerves, but she got 
over it and gave him her hand. 

“ We’ve left your sister at the black cottages, 
Mr. Fane,” she began, “ and my brother wanted 
to go back and help her — ” 

“And my sister is a little nervous in these 
lanes,” Lai continued, “so that if you would 
be so good as to see her as far as The Hall, I 
should be very grateful. It is on your way, 
I know.” 

‘I’d like to very much,” said Bernard, 
promptly. 

“Thanks so much. Good-night.” 

He lifted his hat and walked off, leaving 
Angela speechless and ready to cry ; for she had 
not desired Lai’s presence with her so much as 
his absence from Dolly, and that Lai knew, 
and she knew that he knew. However, it was 
not easy to embarrass Bernard; he talked on 

165 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


for both till she had recovered. “Ah,” thought 
Angela, coming back to the remembrance of 
her escort, “ here is some one who will not 
flout and contradict me and fling my own 
axioms in my face!” 

“That chap Searle, now,” Bernard was 
saying when next his word reached her brain : 
“he’s a good worker; he might get on if he 
liked; but he will drink. Comes home every 
Saturday night drunk as a lord. What are 
you to do with a chap like him?” 

“ He should be persuaded to take the pledge,” 
said Angela, reviving a little to discuss one of 
her favourite hobbies. 

“ Oh, the teetotal tomfoolery ; no, I guess that 
wouldn’t do for him. What he wants is to 
know when to pull up.” 

“Teetotal — nonsense?” said Angela, avoid- 
ing Bernard’s too strong expression. “The 
pledge of abstinence is the only safeguard for 
an habitual drunkard. I am a total abstainer 
myself.” 

“Ah, but I guess you didn’t ever drink,” 
said Bernard, as one who scores a point. 
“Besides, girls don’t want it so much; I dare- 
say they can do without. But it stands to 
reason a man can’t do a decent day’s work 
on water. Spirits are no good ; they’re mostly 
Adulterated with beastly stuff, and the best 

i66 




LOVE IN CHIEF 


of them isn’t wholesome. But a glass of good, 
honest beer don’t do anybody any harm. A 
couple of quarts a day, that’s my limit; I 
dare say a quart and a half would do for a 
little chap like Searle, except, perhaps, in 
harvesting. The point is to know your limit 
and stick to it, and that he’ll never do, more’s 
the pity.” 

Angela felt the primitive truths of her life 
flying round her like slates in a gale. “But 
doctors say — ” she was beginning. 

“Doctors ’ll say anything; and, come this 
time ten years, they’ll all say all different. 
That old chap in Tennyson, now, who said he’d 
have his quart if he died for it; I guess he 
didn’t lose much by sticking to his beer.” 

“Oh, do you read Tennyson?” said Angela, 
faintly. 

“Sometimes, on Sunday afternoons. There 
isn’t much to do on the farm, and there’s no 
paper, and you can’t read the Bible all day 
long; so when I’ve done my chapter I often 
turn in on him. I like the things in dialect; 
they’re uncommonly good. I like the thing 
about the Baptists, who left their sins in the 
pond and poisoned the cow,” he continued, with 
a grin. “ Father lent ’em our pond once, when 
he’d had a split with the Wesleyans ; but I guess 
they won’t come there again to do their bap- 
13 167 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


tising. It looks as clear as the river, but it’s 
about six feet deep in mud.” 

“ I was thinking of starting a branch of the 
C. E. T. S. here, and asking you to join it,” 
said Angela, with the calmness of despair. 

“Me turn teetotaller? I should die of it!” 

“Your adherence would have strengthened 
my hands, but, of course, since you feel like this, 
there is no more to be said.” 

“Do you want me to join?” 

“It does not matter. I sha’n’t start the 
branch now.” 

Bernard walked on in silence. Six miles an 
hour was his usual rate of walking, four when 
with Dolly, or, as he supposed, with any other 
able-bodied female; but Angela was used to 
crowded London pavements and the very 
deliberate pace of lazy Lai. She did not 
protest, she was too much out of heart to mind 
being out of breath. She sadly supposed that 
Bernard was not observant. Great was her 
surprise when, remarking, “ I guess we’re going 
too fast,” he reduced his pace to three miles 
an hour and rather doubtfully offered his 
arm. 

‘I suppose it’s not the proper thing,” was 
his comment when she declined it. “ Dolly said 
so, but then she doesn’t know everything; and 
you do take arms in to dinner. I’ll remember 

i68 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


another time. Look here, are you set on this 
temperance business?” 

“I think it a noble cause,” said Angela, 
wearily standing to her guns. 

“Then I’ll take the pledge for a month.” 

“You will?” 

“I guess I couldn’t stand it any longer,” 
Bernard explained; “but a month from now ’ll 
just keep clear of the harvesting. I’d like 
to do what you want, as far as is reason. 
And here we are. I’m awfully glad to have 
met you. You’ll remember I’d like to please 
you, won’t you?” 

Oh yes, Angela said, she would remember; 
and she kept her word, for all the night through 
she reflected alternately on Lai’s defection and 
on Bernard Fane’s subjection — a word which 
she refused to lengthen into subjugation. 

Lai, on his way to the black cottages, walked 
really fast, but he did not get back in time to 
help Dolly with her cans of water; she was 
feeding the baby when he came up. Sitting 
in a low chair with the child on her knee, 
holding the bottle, the delicate little toy fin- 
gers clasped round her own, Dolly, intent and 
serious, was no Madonna of pity and love, but a 
business-like young woman performing a duty. 
But Lai, who was fond of little children, un- 
consciously ascribed to her his own feelings; 

169 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


he saw the divine spirit of motherhood, and 
stood quietly watching, too reverent to speak 
and break the charm. It was the traitorous 
sun, suddenly bursting out to throw Lai’s 
shadow on the floor, which made Dolly look 
up. She smiled. She had forgotten her vexa- 
tion, and was frankly glad to see him, yet her 
first words were a reproach. 

“Why did you come back? Your sister 
hated it, and there was no need!” 

“I came to help you.” 

“It was a pity. Your sister is very fond 
of you, very proud; you should not vex her,” 
Dolly said, laying the child in the cradle. She 
rose and came to the door, and stood in the 
hot sunshine, rich in colour as a Tintoretto, 
spiritual as the crowned Madonna of the angel- 
ical painter. She was still thinking of Mrs. 
Searle, and pity was Dolly’s loveliest ex- 
pression. 

“ I left my sister in the charge of your brother ; 
he was going to see her home. Now will you 
accuse me of vexing her ? Or are you going to 
give me something to do?” 

“You may watch the baby while I sweep the 
room.” 

“ Thank you ; I will sweep the room while you 
watch the baby.” 

“You? You sweep?” 

170 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


“Why not?” 

“ Have you ever swept in your life ?” 

“ I have not; but I can try.” 

“Oh! very well,” said Dolly, suddenly 
folding her hands and sitting down in her low 
chair. “Do it: there’s the broom behind the 
door. Do it: I should love to see you.” 

The road outside was far cleaner than the 
floor of Mrs. Searle’s kitchen. Lai stood, 
doubtfully surveying his task and the aged 
broom. “ It really wants scrubbing,” he said, 
seriously. 

“Sweeping will do, if you sweep properly.” 

“‘Will do!’ Miss Fane, I am surprised to 
hear you use that sloven’s expression. How- 
ever, I am afraid sweeping will have to do, as 
we have neither sand nor Brooke’s soap.” 

Leaving Dolly amazed at his erudition, Lai 
made a sudden descent upon the hearth-rug, 
shook it, rolled it up, and carried it out. He 
took out the cradle as well, very gently putting 
it down in the shade without waking the child. 
The chairs he piled on the table; the curtains 
he tucked up. Dolly took her place outside 
with the rest of the furniture, and stood in 
the doorway, watching and laughing. Lai 
paused, leaning on his broom in the middle 
of the floor as Maud Muller might have leaned 
upon her hay-rake. 

171 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


Suddenly he made a triumphant pounce upon 
Mrs. Searle’s brown teapot, which spent all its 
days upon the hob. He emptied away the 
liquid tea, shook out the leaves on a broken 
plate, and began to strew them with fastidious 
fingers about the floor: the contrast between 
him and his task was piquant. Bernard would 
never have attempted to sweep at all, Lucian 
might have tried, but he was not wise enough 
for the tea-leaf plan. Dolly’s imagination could 
see him happily brooming all the dust out of 
the open door, and gathering it up with his 
fingers when it lodged in the inequalities of the 
flooring. This amateur house-maid worked in 
different style. Neat, deft, precise, that was 
Lai ; he coaxed the flue out of the comers, he 
lifted the fender and swept underneath, he took 
away cobwebs from the window and spiders’ 
nests from the angles of the ceiling, and swept 
all his gleanings into a symmetrical pile. 

“A dust-pan, now,” he said, looking round 
enquiringly. 

“There’s no such thing. Let me do it now: 
you’ve proved your powers.” 

“No,” said Lai; “no.” His eye rested on a 
copy of the local paper; in a trice he had it 
folded firmly with sharp edges, and was bending 
it into a convenient receptacle for the debris, 
which he emptied into the fire. Then he 
172 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


dusted the furniture with his handkerchief and 
put everything back in place, twitching the 
ragged hearth-rug straight to the eighth of an 
inch and arranging all the chairs in pairs 
exactly. 

“But it should have been scrubbed,” he 
wound up, with a sigh of regret. 

“ I won’t have it; Mrs. Searle wouldn’t know 
her own room. Do you know, I never thought 
a man could have so — could be—” 

“Could have so much sense,” Lai finished, 
quaintly. 

“Well, I didn’t. Where did you learn how 
to do it?” said Dolly, laughing. 

“Miss Fane, I have a pair of eyes, and our 
rooms at home are swept sometimes.” 

“Ah, but you’ve the hands, too.” 

“I know it,” Lai said, displaying them with 
disgust. Dolly looked, with a wise little nod, 
and went into the scullery; she brought back 
a fresh towel, a piece of yellow soap, and a tin 
basin full of clean hot water. 

“That is good,” Lai said, plunging in his 
hands with an air of relief. Dolly was looking 
at her own. “ I think I’ll wash, too,” she said; 
and without more ado stripped back her cuffs 
and slipped her fingers in beside Lai’s. The 
sunlight sparkled in the water and flashed in 
silver circles, following the curve of the white 

173 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


metal. Dolly chased the piece of soap all 
round the basin, and Lai captured it and gave 
it to her; her wrist was soft to the touch as a 
baby’s. Lai was warmly alive to the charm 
of the moment, and would have prolonged it ; not 
so Dolly. She withdrew her hands with the 
same indifference as though Bernard had been 
her partner. They were obliged to share the 
same towel; there were but two in Mrs. Searle’s 
establishment. 

“What a pussy-cat you are!” Dolly laughed, 
noticing Lai’s fastidious movements. “ Do you 
manicure your hands?” 

“ I rather think that is a deadly insult. No, 
I do not manicure my hands ; I am merely clean. ’ ’ 

“Merely clean! You’re hard on the rest of 
us.” Dolly was thinking of Lucian as he had 
appeared after half an hour of weeding in the 
violet-bed. She held out her own hand, soft, 
rosy, crinkled by the hot w^ater. “There are 
stains on my fingers ; I can’t get them off with- 
out taking the skin, too; so I leave them on. 
Am I not clean, please?” 

Lai was in danger of losing his head, and 
kissing the pretty palm that lay in his, “ I 
don’t see any stains,” he said. Dolly withdrew 
it, colouring at his tone. She pulled down her 
sleeves, and told herself she was a fool to 
forget that men are fools. 

174 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


“ Do you always do as your sister tells you ?” 
she asked, abruptly. 

“Miss Fane, do you always do as your 
brother tells you?” 

“I? Not often,” Dolly frankly admitted. 
“I do as I like.” 

“You’re more independent than I am: I do 
what Angela likes, except on serious and 
important questions of principle. It saves 
so much trouble, you know ; I can do no wrong, 
like the king.” 

“What principle was involved in your 
staying this afternoon?” 

Lai was dumb, manifestly embarrassed by 
this sudden attack. 

“Tell me,” Dolly insisted. She was ex- 
pecting that he would answer “You,” in 
which case she meant to snub him and- give 
him up. But he remained silent. 

“ Why did you come back, when your sister 
hated it and you hated vexing her, as I know 
very well you did?” 

“ Because I couldn’t stand seeing a girl carry 
those heavy cans.” 

Dolly had her answer now, and she knew it 
was the truth. Lai had coloured over his 
admission and cast down his eyes; he should 
have looked youthful and ingenuous, but he 
did not. A very expressive mouth had Lai; 

175 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


the underlip was remarkably firm, pure, de- 
cisive; tenacity and independence controlled 
its curves. One might expect to find originality 
in his theory of life, anachronisms in his creed, 
possibly asceticism, certainly unworldliness : 
in fact, all those queer ideas whose existence 
Angela unhappily suspected. So much may 
be read in a momentary twist of the lips. 
Chivalry here in the twentieth century ! Bernard 
looked on woman as an inferior animal, Lucian 
as a comrade, Farquhar as slave or sultana by 
turns : Dolly’s observations and reflections were 
summed up in the involuntary remark: 

“Mr. Laurenson, how very odd you are!” 


XIII 


THE FIRST DROPS OF THE THUNDER-SHOWER 

“ O Medje, who with thy smiling 

Hast enchained my heart, once free — ” 

G ounod, whose sweet and sensuous church 
music has something of the quality of 
good strong thick stupefying incense -smoke, has 
written some acceptable love-songs; such at 
least was Lucian’s opinion. Aided by the 
night’s stillness and the seductive influence of 
the stream which cradled their boat, Noel 
Farquhar’s fine dramatic voice rang up the 
valley to the hotel, half a mile away. The 
twangs and pangs of Lucian’s banjo did not 
travel so far. Farquhar had a powerful voice, 
thoroughly well trained; he did not tremble 
in sentimental passion and murder time in the 
name of liberty, nor yet did he alternately 
spue out his words and gobble them down. 
And he had fire; he could sing the very heart 
out of a song. His native taste in music he 
usually sacrificed to the general good ; he would 
177 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


sing “The Lost Chord” and “The Holy City ” 
and “Beauty’s Eyes,” and other favourites, to 
please young ladies such as Angela Laurenson 
and elderly gentlemen who like a little music 
after dinner. But Lucian laid a taboo on these ; 
he offered Farquhar the choice between what 
he called gamey music (meaning the glorious 
modem discords which we all delight to honour 
in the abstract) and ditties of the Bank Holi- 
day school, with a choms in which he expressed 
his desire to join. Whereupon Farquhar hur- 
riedly embarked upon “Medje.” 

It was a clear night of summer, still and 
starry. The stream’s dark glass was filmed 
with silver mist which wavered and rose and 
receded as if it were the visible vesture of the 
wind; the smooth hills, spreading dark wings 
over the valley, breathed peace. For sounds 
they had the tinkle of the orchard mnnel and 
the deep breaths of cows wrenching the dewy 
grass; and for scents the night perfume of the 
water and of the woods, as well as the sweeter 
individual smells of flowers: flaxen meadow- 
sweet, wild mint blowing purple among the 
reeds, and clover in the meadow-grasses. 

“A summer night like this is the best imita- 
tion of Paradise this side of the Golden Gates,” 
said Lucian, leaning down to watch the ripples 
parting silver-rimmed beneath the prow. 

178 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


“I’d not give a cent to get into Paradise/’ 

“You won’t be asked, sonny.” 

“ There you’re right, for there’s no such place.” 

“Your views on eschatology, my friend, ap- 
pear demned definite.” 

“Definite? Finite, don’t you mean?” 

Lucian leaned back and folded his arms rest- 
fully; he liked nothing better than to explore 
the recesses of Farquhar’s character, which were 
commonly open only after dark. 

“ Haven’t you any intimations of immortality 
from the recollections of early childhood?” he 
asked. 

“None,” said Farquhar. “Never had. 
Seventy years of this world’s long enough for 
me. I don’t want an eternity to learn to be 
good in. Another point : if I believed what you 
Christians believe, do you think I’d live as you 
live? Not much. Act up to your creed; 
there’s the secret of happiness.” 

“And what’s your creed, then?” 

“ Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die,” 
said Farquhar, cynically enjoying his own 
cynicism. 

“And suppose the workings of Causation 
came and put a stopper on your eating and 
drinking? If you were brought to grinding 
poverty, say, or got infected with leprosy, or 
didn’t marry Dolly Fane?” 

179 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


“There’s always the ultimate remedy,’’ said 
Farquhar, with a shrug. 

“ Which means, being interpreted ?” 

“Suicide while of unsound mind: I’d take 
good care it wasn’t called accidental death. I 
wonder, now, if they’d give me Christian 
burial?” 

“Not if I was anywhere around, sonny; you 
may depend on that. So you seriously con- 
template suicide as a possible end of your 
life?” 

“Probable, not possible: I keep my revolver 
loaded. I’ve had that before me ever since I 
remember.” 

“Well, I’ll give you the credit of being con- 
sistent; only, don’t you include me among the 
Christians, for I’m not one. You can put 
down my inconsistencies to that if you like. 
If I’d owned a creed, I believe I might have 
stuck to it — tolerably well.” 

“You’re sorry you’ve none?” 

“Yes,” said Lucian. 

“ The Almighty doesn’t seem to know His own 
business very well.” 

“Don’t you blaspheme,” said Lucian. “I 
can’t say I believe that there is a God, but I 
know I don’t believe that there isn’t. When 
little boys like you are profane, you make me 
think of some kids I knew, who had a mid- 
i8o 


LOVE IN CHIEP 


night supper in the church-yard to show they 
weren’t afraid of bogies. And it rained, and 
one got rheumatic fever; that was me,” he 
wound up, cheerfully. 

Farquhar laughed, and broke off to ask, “Is 
that any one calling?” 

“Who’d look us up at this time of night, 
’cept it was the postman?” 

“Are you expecting a letter?” 

“I had my weekly budget yesterday, and 
so did you, sonny; don’t be jealous.” 

“ I am jealous; I’m confoundedly jealous.” 

“What is it you want, boy?” 

“To see your letter.” 

Lucian was fully alive to the fascination of 
playing with a tiger; he pulled out Dolly’s 
grey envelope and played a tune on the back 
of it . “ Here it is ; what do you want to know ?’ ’ 

“ I want to know how she addresses you and 
signs herself, and what the substance of it’s like, 
and how many sheets she sends you.” 

“ How many does she send you ?” 

“Curious, too, are you? Exchange, then.” 

“Not much. Suppose she called you darling 
and me only dear?” 

“ By Heaven, Lucian, I shouldn’t wonder if I 
murdered 3^ou in my sleep some night!” 

“Did you say in your sleep or in mine?” 
Lucian put in. 

i8i 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


“I’d not do it in my senses, for I’ve no wish 
to be hanged for murder; but, I tell you, I can’t 
get the thought of those letters of yours out of 
my head. And when the will’s in abeyance 
the body sometimes works of itself. You keep 
your door locked : mind. I’ve warned you.” 

“ Upon my solemn honour, old Farquhar, you 
are a savage!” exclaimed Lucian. 

“Take the thing away, then; keep it out of 
my sight!” 

“ I guess you’d read it if you found it lying 
about?” 

“ You’re right, I should. I’d have opened the 
envelope yesterday by the steam of the kettle, 
only Dolly ’d been at the pains to seal it, 
confound her!” 

Lucian gave him a queer glance. That 
cynical confession did not alienate him; for 
one thing, he knew that it was necessary to 
make a large discount upon Farquhar’ s rev- 
elations of iniquity, and for another, had it 
been true to the last word it could not have 
changed his feeling. Strong, quiet, -and im- 
movable, that lay welded, into his life; it 
almost equalled his love for Dolly; it out- 
weighed his love for himself. He moved to 
give his letter to Farquhar, but checked his 
hand in mid-air; Dolly’s affectionate words 
might so easily be misconstrued by a jealous 
182 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


eye. Instead, he plunged the envelope over 
the side, and let it float away. 

“There goes temptation,” he said, as the 
chain of bubbles ended. 

“There’ll be others to come, though. There 
is some one calling.” 

It was Charlesworth hailing them from the 
shore; Farquhar took up the oars and rowed 
back. The huge figure of the American loomed 
up against the twilit sky, quiet as a rock ; he 
never was impatient. 

“Way up at the hotel I heard you singing, 
and I made out you must be down here, sir; 
higher up the water’s not deep enough to 
drown a kitten,” he said, as Farquhar secured 
the boat. A stake and a rope were all that was 
needed, without bars or locks; theft was un- 
fashionable at Petit-Fays. 

“Nothing wrong, is there?” Farquhar asked. 

“I’d not go so far as to say that; but I 
told you we were running into some dirt, and 
it’s come up pretty close.” 

“Ah! what’s up, then?” 

Charlesworth fell in beside him and told his 
tale. The path was narrow, the grass dewy, 
and the American had shown pretty plainly 
that he took his orders from one master only. 
Lucian dropped behind and meekly held his 
peace. It appeared that the lad who had been 
^3 183 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


injured was demanding compensation ; Charles- 
worth, who was ready to give, had refused to 
concede; and a venomous little dispute had 
sprung up, which was breeding bad blood be- 
tween him and the men. Added to this, they 
were asking higher wages. 

“ I couldn’t put up with him, and that’s the 
square truth,” Charles worth frankly acknowl- 
edged. “If he’d come to me and said, ‘I 
was knocked silly, and I’ve lost a couple of 
weeks; I know I’d no business to be where I 
was, and I deserved all I got, but can you do 
anything for me?’ — then I don’t say but what 
I might have turned to and helped him out; 
that’s talking. But when he swaggers up and 
says, ‘Show us the colour of your money and 
be hanged to you, else I’ll make you,’ why, then 
I tell him that he’s at liberty to go to Hades if 
he likes, but not a red cent shall he get from me. 
I don’t know whether that’s your way of doing 
business, sir, but I guess it’s mine.” 

“My dear fellow. I’d not have you back 
down, don’t think it! I’ve a preference myself 
for fighting things out. When was this?” 

Farquhar’s words were exemplary, but his 
face was less discreet; it was manifest that he 
did prefer to fight things out, and Charles- 
worth, who laid no claim to the Christian grace 
of meekness, hailed a spirit akin. 

184 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


“ This evening, after pay-time. I came right 
round to you.” 

“What’s the next move to be?” 

“Well,” said Charlesworth, deliberately: “I 
guess it’s me they’ve got a down on now; but 
when the time comes they won’t stop to sort 
us out. They’re pretty sick about your new- 
fangled machinery for one thing, and then 
there’s the business about the Britishers: 
taking one thing with another, and this com- 
pensation racket on the top, you may bet 
they’re sure-enough mad. And I’ve no use for 
a funeral at present. So before we go any 
further, sir, I’d ask you to come round to the 
works; for there’s a job there I’d like you to 
see.” 

He would not explain any further, and the 
trio walked on past the gold-litten windows 
of the hotel towards the quarry. All was silent 
there and dark save for the signal-lamp of the 
watchman, sparkling on the brow of the pit 
among the constellations high in the dark 
sky, like a topaz among diamonds. Picking 
their way among the truck lines, which con- 
verged like so many silver cords from all 
directions towards the mouth of the quarry, 
they came up to the splendid block of granite 
marked out by Charlesworth for their first 
serious essay in carving. Its rich, even colour 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


and fine-grained texture made it very valuable. 
A pillar hewn from it, overrun by curly-tailed 
dragons and roses of strange design, was 
assigned to stand, in a temple of the Flowery 
Land. Another part was to misrepresent the 
king in the market-place of a coimtry town; 
and they had accepted other orders as well, for 
the whole mass weighed some thousands of 
tons. Upon the fulfilment of these conditions 
the future of the quarry depended. For three 
weeks past they had been hard at work loosen- 
ing the granite from its bed and getting it free 
from the other blocks which wedged it in: 
an operation involving nice calculation and 
accurate obedience. Under Charlesworth’s 
directions, shot-holes three feet deep and six 
inches apart were bored along the line of 
cleavage, cleaned out, charged with a cartridge, 
and filled up or tamped with clay. With each 
cartridge a length of slow fuse was connected, 
the different strands being gathered together 
in a metal case called the igniter, so that the 
cartridges could be fired simultaneously. Some 
use electricity to explode the charge, Charles- 
worth did not. The operator; generally him- 
self, had to betake himself nimbly out of the 
way while the fuse burned on at three feet per 
minute till it came to the cartridge and finished 
its work. Already several small blasts had 

i86 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


taken place, preparatory to the large final 
explosion which was to dissever the whole block 
from its bed. 

“I guess that's what they’ve got their eye 
on,” said Charlesworth, coming to a stand in 
front of the cliff. 

Farquhar thrust his hands into his pockets 
and said nothing. 

“Dmitri Dmitriyevitch vows to be avenged 
of his enemies,” suggested Lucian at his ear. 

“What’s that? — Shut up, De Saumarez, I’m 
doing a little thinking. So you think they 
mean to spoil the stone, eh, Charlesworth?” 

“I guess they mean to,” said the American, 
austerely, “but I guess I don’t mean them^to.” 

“Well, yes, I guess the same; but how do 
you think they’d set about it?” 

“Tamper with the cartridges. Overcharge 
them, I’d bet: smash the whole place up, so’s 
you couldn’t cut a lady’s paper-weight out of 
the bits. And if we went up along with it I 
guess they wouldn’t go into mourning. That’s 
the kind of crowd they are : measly little city- 
bred slushes who’ll do anything so long as they 
can keep their own skins whole.” 

“ I don’t want to lose my granite, and still 
less to lose my life,” said Farquhar. “ How do 
you propose to circumvent them?” 

“Well, there’s three of us, sir; I reckon we 
187 


LOVE IN CHIEE 


should be able to keep things straight. I dare 
say you know the difference between a one- 
pound charge and a two-pound, and I know I 
do, and so does Mr. de Saumarez here. What 
we shall have to do is to watch. There’s a 
matter of a couple more blasts to run, besides 
the last. It ’ll mean testing every charge 
every time; but that’s how I made out we’d 
do it. Or, of course, if you like it better, we 
could cave in, and give the little beggar his 
solatium, and raise the men ; that’d quiet them 
for a bit, and then I dare say they’d let us get 
this job through and we could fight it out after, 
when we don’t stand to lose so much. I’m not 
boss^here; it’s for you to choose, sir.” 

“What do you say, De Saumarez?” 

“What the dickens is the use of me saying 
anything, when you’ve already made up your 
mind like imto the solid earth that cannot be 
moved?” 

“Well, I think we’ll fight it out, then,” said 
Farquhar, with a laugh. 

“Fight goes,” concluded Charlesworth. 

And they went back to the hotel. 


XIV 


SMALL BEER 

A WHITE cloth, white lilies and scarlet 
geraniums, red-tiled floor, flax-blue china: 
the low sun of evening painted their colours 
afresh; the lily petals glistened and sparkled 
like frosty snow. All the windows were open, 
and the soft little wind that stirred the straight 
muslin curtains filled the empty room with the 
scent of unseen pinks. Then came in Dolly, 
carrying a squat rounded jug of brown earthen- 
ware smoothly overlaid in silver; the spot of 
light dancing inside showed that the jug was 
full. She set it down by the wooden elbow- 
chair at the table’s foot, put straight a sprig 
of parsley on the dish of cold meat, glanced at 
the clock, which said five minutes to seven, and 
then sat down, half in sunshine and half in 
shade, with her hands in her lap. For no 
longer than a minute was she idle; a book lay 
open on the table, its leaves ruffling and flying 
over and over, and she pulled it across and 
began to read at haphazard, as one visiting 
189 


i 


LOVE IN CHIEF 

an old friend. For between those covers her 
old friends dwelt in an a^rmy, and Dolly’s 
favourite was named Jonis d’Artagnan. Since 
the age of seven she had read Dumas in his 
native tongue. Her brow was clear, her breath 
was even, she only moved to turn her page; 
tranquillity was Dolly’s dower, bestowed on her 
by perfect health and peaceful nerves. 

At seven o’clock Bernard came in, and Dolly 
quitted the oak of Fontainebleau to make the 
tea. “ Have you washed your hands ?” was her 
greeting, for Bernard was not as careful about 
such things as he might have been. Bernard 
answered: “Yes.” 

“Had a good day?” 

“Pretty fair.” 

Standing before the tray, Dolly put a piece 
of sugar into her cup, then some milk, then 
some cream, and, lastly, the clear, auburn, 
aromatic tea. Authorities agree that this is 
the only correct method of tea-making, but 
Dolly kept their laws without knowing them. 
Bernard tilted up the silver jug and looked 
inside, and glanced across at his sister. “ Have 
you got another cup?” he inquired. “I guess 
I’ll have tea to-night.” 

''Tea, Bernard?” 

“Isn’t there enough to go round?” 

“ Oh ! plenty,” said Dolly. “ Aren’t you well ?” 

190 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


“I’m off beer for the present; that’s all.” 

“ It’s quite good ; I tasted some when I drew 
it,” said Dolly, after a pause. 

“Dare say,” said Bernard, regarding the 
silver jug as though he thought the beer very 
good indeed, “but I don’t want it to-day. Are 
you going to give me some tea?” 

Dolly made a step towards the cupboard, 
checked herself, and sat down. “You’d better 
fetch the cup yourself ; it’s the proper thing for 
you to wait on me.” 

“ I don’t see why we should always be on our 
best behaviour here at home,” observed Ber- 
nard, as, in complying, he knocked over the 
sugar basin. 

“Because if you don’t practise at home you 
go wrong when you are out. You pushed past 
me on Sunday as we came out of church.” 

The charge being true, Bernard felt annoyed. 
He essayed to drink his tea, pursed up his lips, 
and put down the cup in a hurry. 

“ If you won’t drink the beer, I will; it would 
be a pity to waste it,” said Dolly, who was 
watching him. 

“You’d get tipsy if you drank all that.” 

“I was not proposing to drink all that; I 
could not do it if I tried. I cannot understand 
how men can dispose of so much.” 

“Girls don’t work like men do.” 

191 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


“ It’s a good thing you are giving it up, then ; 
I’ve noticed that you were beginning to get 
stout.” 

Bernard continued to look stolid. Out of 
patience, Dolly launched at him a sudden 
question. 

“Are you turning teetotaller to please Miss 
Laurenson ?” 

“ I’m not turning teetotaller. I’m only 
trying it for a time.” 

“But is it to please Miss Laurenson?” 

“Well, yes; I guess it is.” 

“Not really, Bernard?” asked Dolly, with a 
change of tone. 

“Why not?’’ 

“She isn’t your sort. And you’ve only 
known her for six weeks.” 

“Come to think of it, I wouldn’t say the 
dude is your sort ; but you seem to like talking 
to him.” 

“ Bernard, do you want to marry her?” asked 
Dolly, after a pregnant pause. 

“I’m going to.” 

“ Hasn’t it occurred to you that she may have 
something to say about that?” 

“ I dare say she’ll refuse me, but if she does I 
can ask her again.” 

“And if she refuses you again?” 

“Then I’ll go on asking till she accepts.” 

192 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


“ In fact, if you persevere you think she is 
bound to give in?” 

“Girls generally do.” 

“Do they? I shouldn’t.” 

“You aren’t like most girls. You’ve been 
brought up with men.” 

“ But, Bernard, Miss Laurenson is an heir- 
ess ; she has eight hundred a year of her own, 
and more to come. Mrs. Merton told me 
so.” 

“Has she? Well, eight hundred a year ’ll 
come in handy ; I’m glad to hear it. If it’s true, 
that is.” 

“ And she is very pretty, and she dresses well, 
and her family is unexceptionable,” pursued 
Dolly. “ I expect she could marry a peer if 
she liked, or at any rate a courtesy title.” 

“Yes, but all those titled chaps are pretty 
rotten,” said Bernard, cheerfully damning the 
aristocracy in a lump. “ She’d do a sight better 
to take me. I’m pretty strong and free from 
vice, and sound in wind and limb ; and as for 
family, I guess ours is good enough for any- 
body, isn’t it?” 

Dolly was reduced to silence, but she was so 
completely preoccupied that she poured cream 
and sugar into Bernard’s cup and filled it up 
with beer, producing a mixture which he 
denounced in emphatic language and emptied 

193 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


out of the window. Presently she interrupted 
his talk about the farm by asking : 

“ Bernard, are you fond of her?” 

“ She’s getting a bit long in the tooth, it’s 
true, but she’s a pretty creature still. I guess 
she suits me as well as any,” was the surprising 
answer. 

“ I mean Miss Laurenson.” 

“ Oh, I thought you were talking about old 
Empress; I was.” 

“Are you fond of her?” 

“Yes,” said Bernard, composedly. “I am.” 

Dolly shrugged her shoulders. “I hope it 
will turn out well.” 

“Hope so, too,” said Bernard. “vShe ought 
to take me simply out of gratitude. Any- 
thing more beastly than tea with this cold 
beef I never did taste!” 

On the morrow, while Dolly was sweeping 
her room out, Maggie came up, gasping, to 
announce “Miss Lawson”; she had a happy 
knack of confounding names. It was, in truth, 
Angela, driven up by the pair of donkeys, as 
Ella Merton said, though only one was in the 
shafts. Mrs. Merton herself would not come 
in, because, she declared, Jehoshaphat would 
eat the reins if he were left. Jehoshaphat had 
a Satanic temper and was more completely 
194 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


omnivorous than an ostrich; beside devouring 
reins and boots and tin-tacks, he had a 
craving for any human flesh except that of 
his mistress, an exception which Ella trium- 
phantly adduced in support of her self - be - 
stowed name, since, said she, dog doesn’t 
eat dog. 

Therefore Angela was alone in the parlour 
when Dolly came down; rather hot, in a faded 
old dress: Angela, very cool and dainty in 
white muslin, now feeling that the advantage 
of appearance had fallen to her. Yet, in spite 
of her dress and her daintiness, she was still 
like a delicate sketch by the side of a beautiful 
painting. 

“I’m sorry Mr. Fane isn’t in,” she began, 
rather stiffly. Angela could not approve of 
Dolly, and would not pretend that she did. 

“The regret will be all on his side. Won’t 
you sit down?” quoth Dolly, very polite. 

“I’m afraid I can’t stay, I am keeping Mrs. 
Merton. May I leave a message for him?” 

“I shall be charmed to deliver it,” Dolly 
assured her; and Angela sought consolation 
by mentally dubbing her accent provincial. 
Dolly exasperated her to such an extent that 
she was ready to imagine a Kentish twang in 
Miss Fane’s foreign intonation. 

“I believe Mr. Fane is interested in tem- 

195 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


perance reform” — here Dolly smiled — “and I 
thought under the circumstances he might care 
to attend the great unsectarian conference which 
is to be held at Swanborough next week. I 
dare say you have heard of it.” 

“No; we have severed our connection with 
the chapel.” 

“This meeting is undenominational.” 

“Essence of chapel, isn’t that? Or so I 
have always understood.” 

“ Perhaps you will tell your brother that it 
begins at three o’clock,” Angela trusted herself 
to say. 

“ I am sure Bernard will be delighted to go. 
Of course, he might speak himself almost as a 
reformed drunkard.” 

“Mr. Fane?” 

“You converted him, did you not?” 

“I converted him? From what?” 

“Oh! from his habit of drinking beer. I am 
so glad; I have often told him that he took 
too much.” 

“ Really, Miss Fane?” said Angela, in accents 
of serious concern. “I had no idea of it! 
What a shocking thing ! I am indeed thankful 
that I have been instrumental in helping him to 
reform.” 

Dolly’s lips twitched, but she instantly 
followed Angela’s lead. “ Of course it was not 
196 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


yet very serious, and he did not often — well — 
exceed. But I assure you I am most grateful 
for all you have done; you have a wonderful 
influence over him — truly wonderful!” 

“Then I shall hope to see him at Swanbor- 
ough; and perhaps you will come, too? You 
need not feel embarrassed ; there will be plenty 
of girls of your own age to keep you in coun- 
tenance,” said Angela, pleasantly. 

“Thank you so much,” said Dolly, as she 
opened the front door. 

She stood on the step to speed the parting 
guests. When the last flicker of Angela’s 
white parasol had vanished, she remarked to 
herself: “Certainly Bernard has a better right 
to trust his own judgment than any one I 
know!” 

Both she and Bernard went to Swanborough 
for the meeting. They drove ; and, after put- 
ting up the horse, had the satisfaction of en- 
countering Miss Laurenson and her brother 
outside the station. Bernard went straight to 
Angela’s side, and Dolly found herself walking 
with Mr. Laurenson. Lai was no talker; and 
as the uncivilized Dolly had not yet learned 
to speak when she did not want to, they walked 
on in silence. 

Swanborough was a town of twenty thousand 
people, mostly wicked. Standing on a tidal 
197 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


river, it harboured the vessels of all nations and 
the peculiar vices of each; there were, besides, 
barracks in the town, which brought their 
special dangers. High wages and a high 
standard of living prevailed: the head of one 
family would be calling for green peas in April, 
while the head of another, discharged from 
the same position, perhaps for drunkenness, 
would send his children, filthy, barefoot, and 
famishing, into the street to beg. That popular 
vice, drunkenness, flourished like a green bay- 
tree. A public - house blossomed at ' every 
street’s comer, and its devotees lounged in its 
shade with their hands in their holey pockets. 
Passing one such palace as a youth pushed open 
the door, Dolly had a view of the crowded bar, 
and breathed in a puff of hot vapour wherein 
the scents of tobacco and gin and old clothes 
contended for the mastery. 

“There are too many of those places!’’ she 
exclaimed, averting her offended face. 

“There are,” Lai answered her, rather bit- 
terly. 

“ I cannot see why the licenses are renewed.” 

“Can you not? Every English government 
lives by this traffic ; do you expect pious sons 
to commit i!)arricide ?” 

“You feel very strongly about it,” said 
Dolly, wondering. 

198 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


“I see the results of the present system.” 

“Then do you believe in Prohibition or in 
Local Option?” 

“I? I believe in putting the whole trade 
under public control, in reducing the number 
of licenses, and in giving the publicans a 
fixed salary independent of the number of 
men they turn into drunkards.” 

“ But those are not Miss Laurenson’s views, 
surely?” asked Dolly, somewhat taken aback. 
Lai was already repenting of his candour. 

“It’s one of the questions of principle on 
which we differ,” he said, in his soft, lazy voice. 
“Don’t betray me. Miss Fane; it will be time 
for me to reveal my heresies when Prohibition 
comes down out of the clouds. Angela herself 
is not where her theories are; she does plenty 
of practical hard work.” 

“Mr. Laurenson, what practical hard work 
do you do?” 

“I?” 

“You. I know you do something.” 

“Who told you anything about me?” 

“No one. I gathered it from the way you 
speak.” 

“Oh, I see.” Lai was unmistakably re- 
lieved. 

“ I wish you would tell me how you set about 
it.” 


14 


199 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


“I’d rather not discuss the question.” 

“I beg your pardon,” said Dolly. Twice, 
now, had he shut up like an oyster and pinched 
her fingers; and she was half angry, until she 
recognised that he meant no rudeness. To 
this conclusion was she brought by the study 
of his face. Lai, when he spoke of himself, had 
a trick of drooping his eyelids, so that, as the 
lashes were long, his eyes were hidden com- 
pletely; he was foolish enough to be modest. 
The compression of his sensitive lips notified 
Dolly of another extenuating circumstance : 
namely, that he was uncomfortable to the 
point of frenzy. In escaping her inquiries he 
was ready to leap clear over the bars of polite- 
ness; surely, then, since he so valorously de- 
fended their privacy, his convictions must be 
very dear to him. As she was musing thus, the 
drooped lids were raised with disconcerting 
abruptness, and Lai’s beautiful dark-grey eyes 
looked down appealingly. 

“ I did not mean to be rude. I would rather 
be rude to any one than you,” he said. 

Dolly’s breathing quickened; a warm spring 
rose in her heart. “I had no business to ask 
you ; but I thought perhaps I might do some- 
thing myself,” she said. 

“ It is only that I — ’ ’ Here Lai stopped . “I 
don’t think — ” he began again; and finally 
200 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


clothed his thought in a general law, altogether 
eliminating the painful personal pronoun I. 
“An amateur’s private opinion is never very- 
interesting. ” 

“And you would rather not talk about your 
private opinions.” 

“I’m not very good at it,” Lai admitted. 
“In fact, I generally make a fool of myself 
when I try — as on the present occasion.” The 
victim of aphasia had put off his apology until 
they were close to the hall, and further con- 
versation was stopped by their arrival at the 
door. 

“You’re coming in?” said Dolly, as he 
paused. 

He shook his head. 

“Don’t you approve of thisf 

“I’m afraid I don’t like religion when it’s 
vulgar,” said Lai. He raised his hat and 
walked off down the street, and Dolly and her 
friends went in. 

No cause needs salvation from its friends 
as does this of temperance. Intolerance, ex- 
aggeration, bad logic, bad taste, and bad 
grammar have all supported and do support it 
still, estranging men who would be content to 
work with the reformers if they took their 
stand on the noble charter given them by St. 
Paul: “ If meat make my brother to offend, I will 
201 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


eat no -flesh while the world standeth'' At Swan- 
borough there were two evangelists, whose 
names appeared on the programme as Rev. 
Dr. Brown and Rev. S. Jones, for your true 
temperance evangelist eschews the adjective 
the as rigidly as temperance in his speeches. 
The one spoke on “Gospel Dynamics”; the 
other proved the Bible a total-abstinence book 
and, incidentally, himself no orator. Angela 
found it hard to feel pleased; she looked at 
Bernard, and saw him yawning undisguisedly, 
and then at Dolly, who sat with hands folded, 
inattentive but composed. 

And Dolly was composed, though she was 
conscious of a strange exaltation which rosed 
her cheek and set her heart throbbing and 
pulses beating in time with it in every finger. 
A well - spring of soft warmth suffused her 
frame; she shut her eyes and saw visions, she 
who was no dreamer — visions in which one 
figure alone was constant. She owned the 
truth. “ I love him,” she told herself. Shame 
she did not feel ; she believed that Lai loved her 
back, and even if he did not there was no hu- 
miliation, since her gift was voluntary, since 
she was proud of her love. He won her by 
being better than herself. Dolly was a little 
pagan ; her love was wild as a bird ; but in it ran 
a puritan strain which claimed an answering 
202 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


purity in the man she loved. Irreproachable 
though he was, Noel Farquhar could not give 
her that, nor yet could Lucian, though he 
was nearer to her ideal. But in Dolly’s room 
at home she had an engraving of Watts’s fine 
picture of Sir Galahad; and the artist might 
have drawn his young knight’s face from Lai as 
he looked on a Sunday morning in church, 
when he sat in his comer behind a pillar 
which hid him from sight, as he thought. 
Had he known that Dolly had a clear though 
narrow view of his profile against the black 
marble of a mural tablet, it would have made 
him retrospectively very unhappy. 

Love left Dolly the same girl as before, save 
that it illumined a side of her nature which 
had been hidden, as the sunlight, creeping 
across from the first faint rim of the crescent, 
slowly enlightens the disk of the moon. Tme, 
she now felt quite charitable towards Angela; 
but Angela was Lai’s sister. She was also 
more lenient to the ungrammatical orators on 
the platform; for the excellent reason that she 
did not listen to them. These were accidents 
of circumstance. But when a stout lady* in 
front ecstatically planted the hind -leg of her 
chair upon Dolly’s instep and sat heavily 
down, the ennobling power of love did not 
hold her back from feeling annoyed. 

' 203 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


When they came out Dolly listened to a 
discussion of the meeting, and herself added 
her word with moderate indifference. They 
walked together to the station, but Dolly, 
whose mood was dreamy, soft, and languorous, 
dissociated herself from the others and walked 
alone. As she passed the Sailors’ Arms, which 
seemed a popular hostelry, the door again 
stood open, and again Dolly glanced in, and 
again saw the crowded bar; but this time Sir 
Galahad was leaning across the counter con- 
versing with the bar-maid. 


XV 


COLLOQUIES WITH AN OUTSIDER 

D olly did her best to get Bernard away 
from the station before Lai came up; but 
as she had only that morning been preaching 
the duties of man to unprotected females, and 
as Bernard’s desires went wholly along with 
his duty, she could not detach him from 
Angela. She went away herself, on the pretext 
of ordering the dog-cart, met Lai in the station 
yard, looked full in his face, and refused to 
know him. 

Angela was waiting impatiently; Lai had 
promised to meet her at six o’clock, their 
train went at six-fifteen, and it was now five 
minutes past. Lai was always exact in keep- 
ing his engagements. Angela felt uneasy, and 
was cross. Bernard stayed with her till ten 
minutes after the hour, and then hurried off 
to consult his sister. Dolly was quite ready to 
drive back alone; perhaps because the route 
through Hungrygut Bottom was in her mind 
205 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


as the best way home, and to it Bernard might 
have demurred on the horse’s account, for 
it was steep and stony, the roads having been 
recently repaired. She had an idea that Lai 
might be waiting in the high-road to see her 
pass. Bernard, having her consent, hurried 
back ; he was just in time to install Angela in a 
first-class carriage, with himself as guardian 
for their half-hour’s journey. Then Angela, 
discovering that she was shut up alone with 
Bernard Fane, began to wish herself idiotic, 
dead, buried, anywhere out of the world, and 
plunged into a fresh discussion of temperance. 

Lai had stood like a statue till Dolly was out 
of sight, and then tried to follow her. He had 
not seen which road she took, and his wander- 
ings led him far from the station. At last he 
bethought him that the horse must be stabled 
somewhere, and began to inquire; and half 
an hour later tracked her down at the Railway 
Hotel. While he was still questioning the 
waiter, a man passed through the hall and 
would have gone out had not Lai interrupted 
himself and sprang forward, crying out, 
“ Meryon!” 

The gambler turned round, colouring with 
pleasure. “I didn’t know you were home!” 
he said. “I heard you’d got no end of stars 
206 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


and orders, but I didn’t know you were home ! 
I’m so awfully glad.” 

“I’m staying with the Mertons ; what are you 
doing?” 

“I’m here for the night. Come to my room, 
will you? There’s heaps I want to know.” 

Lai, who had just heard that Dolly had 
departed full half an hour ago, abandoned his 
quest for the nonce, and went. Mery on and 
he had been friends for years, though the 
guardian angel knew it not; she would have 
feared the effect of pitch on Lai’s innocence 
if she had. They met rarely; in the intervals 
their friendship hibernated, coming out un- 
spoiled when times of refreshing arrived. Mer- 
yon wrote never, Lai rarely, and when he did 
his stiff little letters were mere catalogues of 
events. But friendship, like the python, can 
live for years unfed. 

Meryon’s room was full of untidy properties 
tidily arranged. A discreditable old Collard 
& Collard was its only luxury. He had been 
playing patience, ancj the cards were scattered 
about the table; Lai sat down on a bedroom 
chair, leaning his elbow on the wash-stand and 
his chin on his hand, and watched Meryon 
gather them up. 

“You haven’t given up playing, then?” he 
said. 


207 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


“ No, I never shall now — the cards have got 
their grip on me. You’re looking sick, Lai," 
said the elder man, earnestly; “what’s the 
matter?’’ 

“ I got hurt, you know.” 

“ Oh yes, I heard about that in the papers. 
You came back in a regular blaze of glory ; I 
was awfully proud of knowing you. Is your 
sister all right?’’ 

“Angela? Perfectly — about to marry, I 
fancy." 

“Is the man a good sort?" 

“Oh, very. I think she will be happy." 

“Been doing any more of your own work?" 

“At intervals. When the chance comes." 

Meryon jerked the bottom of the pack down 
on the table, and pressed and patted it straight 
between his palms. “Try a game of ecart6?" 
he suggested. 

Lai shook his head. 

“I’ll play without stakes, for once." 

“No. I never play." 

“ I don’t see why not. Even father used to 
play whist in the evenings, he and mother and 
two of the canons, awfully decent old chaps; 
and I used to stand behind mother and give 
her tips. Father was no end of a good player. 
I don’t see why you won’t, Lai. It’s wonderful 
how it takes you out of yourself." 

208 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


Lai shook his head again. “I never have 
played and never shall.” 

“Are you afraid?” 

“ Perhaps.” 

Meryon looked at him earnestly. “You’re 
very queer, Lai,” hfe said. “I believe you’ve 
got heaps of things in you that no one ever 
suspects. I believe you’re a bom gambler — 
I hope you won’t mind my saying so. But 
there’s no harm; you aren’t like me, you’d 
never give way to it.” 

“If I once began I should never stop,” Lai 
took him up, swiftly. “You’re right; I’m not 
like you, Meryon. I haven’t your pluck. I 
had to give up motoring because I could not 
keep my head while I was driving. I’m as 
weak as water.” 

“ But you never do the things, you only 
want to and don’t let yourself. I call that be- 
ing strong, not weak. That’s just what I like. 
You’re so excitable, you have to keep tight 
hold of yourself for fear you should go to the 
bad, and yet you never do anything you 
shouldn’t.” 

Lai only shrugged his shoulders. Meryon, 
who was still standing, dropped the cards and 
put his hand on Lai’s arm. “What is the 
matter?” he said, tenderly. “What’s worry- 
ing you, old fellow?” 


209 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


Lai did not answer, because he was incapable 
of explaining. It was necessary for his inter- 
locutor to drag the truth out of him by ques- 
tions. Dolly had found out this; but whereas 
Lai’s desire had been to escape from her, he 
was anxious to make confession to Meryon. 

“I say, old fellow, is it a girl?” questioned 
the gambler. 

“Yes.” 

“ Then, of course, it’s serious ; it would be with 
you. Won’t she have you?” 

“I haven’t asked her.” 

“Have you had a quarrel?” 

“ I have just met her, and she cut me dead. 
Heaven knows why; I don’t.” 

Meryon, by a string of questions, contrived 
to elicit the story of Lai’s courtship. The 
cause of Dolly’s coldness puzzled him, as it 
had puzzled Lai, but after several abortive in- 
quiries he hit at last on the right track. 

“I don’t see what could have happened 
while the meeting was going on to make her 
change so. What were you doing all the 
time?” 

“ Business.” 

“What, your own sort of business?” 

Lai nodded. 

“Whereabouts?” 

“ Oh, in the town.” 


210 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


“Tell me where, old fellow — that is, if you 
don’t mind me meddling.’’ 

“At the Sailors’ Arms; you know the place.” 

“It’s a hell of a hole,” said Meryon, soberly. 
“ Did you go in?” 

“ For a few minutes.” 

“I say, it’s on the way from the Com Ex- 
change to the station. I say, do you think 
she could have seen you?” 

Lai was silent. Remembering that Dolly had 
noticed the place before, he thought it possible. 

“It’s all very well to say girls don’t mind 
that sort of thing— like a man to sow his wild 
oats, and all that ; but they do mind, the nicest 
of them. And she’d think you must be such 
an awful humbug, too. You know, old fellow, 
the thing for you to do is to go and ask her, 
and tell her right away.” 

“ I could not possibly do it, and I would not 
for the world if I could,” said Lai, with great 
decision. 

“Why not?” 

Lai shmgged his shoulders. 

“ I expect you mean you’re too shy, and 
don’t like talking about that sort of thing 
to a girl. Is that it?” 

“I dare say.” 

“Old fellow, can’t you get over that?” 

“I cannot,'" said Lai, impatiently. “What, 

2II 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


tell Miss Fane that I — that the girl — Be- 
sides, she doesn’t care a straw for me. I shall 
ask her if she’ll have me, and then go. An- 
gela, at least, will be heartily glad.” 

“Is her name Fane? Not Dolly Fane, by 
any chance?” 

“Yes, it is. Do you know her?” 

“ I took her in to dinner once at the Mertons,” 
said Meryon. After a pause he went on : 
“ Do you know, Lai, there’s two other men 
after her. De Saumarez, who I’ve told you 
about, is one, and Farquhar, the M.P.” 

“Of course she likes one of them,” said Lai, 
after another pause. “I hope it isn’t Far- 
quhar. I dislike that fellow.” 

“ I thought he was all that’s virtuous. 
You never caught him out in any tricks, did 
you?” 

“Not I ! But I’d rather she married a 
gentleman.” 

“I always thought he was an awful swell,” 
said Meryon, meekly. 

Lai coloured and laughed, and glanced up- 
through his eyelashes. “I am a conceited, 
dogmatic prig; how can you possibly tolerate 
me, Meryon?” he said. “I’ve talked about 
myself long enough ; now let’s hear what 
you’ve been doing.” 

They talked on for an hour or more, and 
212 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


then Meryon persuaded Lai to play to him, 
listening the while in quiet, uncritical enjoy- 
ment, and caressing the black kitten asleep 
on his knee. Meryon always stipulated for a 
piano in his room when his resources could be 
stretched to cover such a luxury. He was 
very fond of strumming out airs from the 
overtures and selections which he heard from 
bands at casinos; he had an ear for melody, 
but had never learned music. Lai, on the 
contrary, was a practised pianist; he played 
correctly, an achievement rare in these days; 
his execution was sure and delicate, his touch 
very clear, bright, and firm. He was very 
careful to hide this talent of his in a napkin. 
Meryon had come to hear of it by accident. 
Lai sat down and very quietly played through 
first a sonata by Mozart, then a courante of 
Bach’s. His taste was for the orderly, old- 
fashioned music ; he hated Wagner, and thought 
even Mendelssohn too fond of innovations. 
Did not he say of himself that he was dogmatic ? 
But he gave Meryon great pleasure. 

Later, Lai went home; and Meryon, after 
seeing him off by one train, waited on the 
platform and himself followed by the next. 
From Monkswell station he walked to Fanes, 
but Dolly had not yet come in, nor had Ber- 
nard. Meryon would not wait; he strolled 
213 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


up the Swanborough road in the hope of meet- 
ing her. Nor was he disappointed. A mile 
up the road he saw a girl leading a horse down 
the hill, and by her supple, slim young figure 
and the brightness of her hair he recognised 
Miss Fane. The steepness of Hungrygut Bot- 
tom plus the violent snortings of a steam- 
roller had again proved too much for the 
nerves of the chestnut; he bolted down the 
hill and almost kicked the cart to pieces before 
Dolly, who had jumped out, could catch and 
quell him. She left the dog-cart for repair at 
Dove Green, the next village, and led Vronsky 
home. Her dark cloth dress had a long skirt, 
which she held up gracefully, like a French 
girl, with curved wrist and prettily bent hand. 
She came on, looking straight before her; 
her lips were hard and her face was hard; 
no melting mood was hers. Irony, and a 
stiff-necked refusal to bend before the blast 
were Dolly’s armour against trouble; she was 
bitterly humiliated, and would not cede an 
inch to humiliation. Certain constricting bands 
seemed to have closed round her heart; she 
had not spent so long a day since she was 
seven and waited outside her mother’s room 
for the news of her death. 

“Let me lead the horse, won’t you?” said 
Meryon, turning to walk with her. Meryon 
214 


LOVE IN CHIEF 

was polite by instinct, as Dolly was grace- 
ful. 

“Thanks, no; he bites.” 

“ I suppose you got smashed up. I hope 
you weren’t hurt.” 

“Not in the least, thank you.” 

This was unpromising. Meryon despaired of 
introducing his subject tactfully; he was not, 
therefore, discouraged, but plunged straight 
into it. 

“I’ve just been seeing Lai Laurenson,” he 
said. “ I beg your pardon, I hope you won’t 
think it awful cheek of me to shove my oar in, 
but I can’t help it. I’ve been friends with 
Laurenson ever since we were at Eton together. 
He’s been so awfully good to me, I can’t help 
speaking now. You cut him in Swanborough 
this afternoon.” 

“I did.” 

“What for?” 

“ I am not going to tell you. I mean,” said 
Dolly, “I don’t want to be rude, but I can’t 
explain my reason. I had one.” 

“Was it because you saw him in at the 
Sailors’ Arms?” 

Dolly hesitated for a minute ; then she 
answered: “Yes.” 

“I’m awfully glad — I thought that was it. 
I can explain why he was there.” 

215 


15 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


“Wait,” said Dolly. “Who told you this?” 

“ I got it out of Laurenson. I met him at the 
Railway Hotel, where he was asking for you.” 

“Does he know you have come to me?” 

“Him? Rather not; I came right away 
without telling; he wouldn’t have let me if 
he’d known. He said he’d never explain, 
himself, and he wouldn’t; he can’t bear talking 
about it.” 

“I can believe it.” 

“No, really you’re quite wrong, you are 
indeed. Miss Fane. Laurenson isn’t like that. 
He went there after a girl. She had run away 
from her home and he wanted her to go back. 
He goes in for that kind of thing. He and 
Miss Laurenson have got a Home in London 
which they run out of their own money, but 
it’s Lai that has to do with working it; he’s 
better than a parson, for he doesn’t ever preach, 
he just lives. If he’d been anywhere in 
Europe that time I had to break my promise, 
I’d never have given way as I did and become 
the beast I am. He’d have seen me through. 
He respects you, and you simply can’t help 
being what he thinks. He never told me 
about that Home, I just found it out. I’ve been 
over it with him. I never shall forget it.” 

“ Do you know the name of the girl he saw at 
the Sailors’ Arms?” 


216 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


“Hilda Davis. She comes from here.” 

“I see. Thank you,” said Dolly. “Yes; 
I am glad to know.” 

Mery on stopped. “I’m glad you don’t think 
it was cheek of me. I’d better go back now; 
I’ll just catch my train.” 

“ Did you come here simply to tell me this?” 
said Dolly. “You’re a good friend.” 

“ There wasn’t anything in it. I didn’t think 
you’d snub me; and if you had I’d have been 
bound to tell you just the same. Laurenson’s 
been no end good, being friends with an out- 
sider like me,” said Mery on, with simplicity. 

Poor outsider! From a great way off his 
tired eyes had seen the bright circle of hap- 
piness ; he came to the light, passed through it, 
and so out into the cold and lonely twilight, 
where his own lot was cast. He was made for 
the life of a home : sociable, contented, affection- 
ate, fond of quiet pleasures, a lover of little 
children. But the tyrannous demon who had 
ruled him would grant no peace; Meryon was 
driven out into the wilderness, where he lived 
and where he died . 


XVI 


A NIGHT-PIECE 

I T might have been supposed that Dolly 
would be anxious to make amends for 
her injustice. When Bernard came in, saying 
that Mrs. Merton had invited them both to 
dinner the next day but one, and that he had 
accepted her kindness, she should have been 
pleased; in place of which she declared that 
she could not go. She had no dress, she said. 
Bernard pointed out that she had dined with 
the Mertons before. “Oh yes,” said Dolly; 
“ but one can’t wear the same thing twice over,” 
and she stood upon her argument till Bernard 
calmly told her that he should go and she 
could stay. Dolly came near to a quarrel 
with him; she did actually provoke one with 
her father; and then she went to bed. 

In the morning she awoke reasonable and 
sweeter - tempered, and begged her father’s 
pardon in words, and Bernard’s in deeds by 
making hot cakes for breakfast. Peace reigned 
over the house of Fanes, except in Dolly’s 
218 


LOVE IN CHIEE 

mind, which was still disturbed. For yes- 
terday, in the flush of her indignation and 
reasonable anger, she had taken a step that she 
could not retrace. Waiting under the white 
sign -post at Dove Green for the smith’s re- 
port on her shattered dog -cart, Dolly had 
made up her mind upon one point, and had 
clinched the matter at once in the post-office 
adjoining the smithy; and now the contem- 
plation of the consequences filled her with 
lively discomfort. She calculated that these 
consequences could not arrive for two days, or 
possibly three; she had two days to prepare; 
but how she was to do so presented a problem of 
weight. Dolly felt that she had made a fool 
of herself, a sensation disagreeable to a girl so 
proud as she; of all troubles she could least 
stomach humiliation. Then, also, she knew 
that her blunder would bring distress on 
Lucian, and was heartily sorry, for she loved 
him. dearly. But there was another, darker 
thought which would stay in her mind, despite 
of reason and despite of resolution. Dolly had 
felt the merciless power of Farquhar’s strength; 
she feared his jealousy, cruel as the grave. 
Vainly she told herself that he was Lucian’s 
friend; he was her lover, but that had not 
shielded her. Imagination offered lurid pict- 
ures of a battle to the death between the 
219 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


rivals. Vague ideas of sending Bernard out 
to Petit-Fays as peace-maker crossed her mind, 
but the irrepressible voice of common -sense 
pointed out that her brother’s attitude towards 
Noel Farquhar was not usually conciliatory; 
also that, even if she sent him at once, he 
could not possibly get there in time to do any 
good. In view of this last consideration, Dolly 
let the matter drop; but her mind was ill at 
ease. 

Next evening when Bernard came down into 
the hall he found her waiting, muffled in a big 
white shawl. Bernard’s hands and head were 
too fully occupied with his white kid gloves 
to allow him to draw deductions, and he dis- 
cerned nothing until she walked out in front of 
him; then he said: 

“Thought you weren’t coming?” 

“I’ve changed my mind.” 

Z-z-p, a button jumped off. “Oh, dash the 
thing!” said Bernard, disgusted. 

“I’ll do it,” said Dolly, taking his wrist. 
“What a pity it is your hands are so large. 
Mine are at least small, though I’ve spoiled 
the skin with hard work. What did you talk 
about in the train yesterday?” 

“That temperance rot, most of the time.” 

“You do waste your chances, Bernard.” 

“Well, she seemed to like it.” 


220 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


“Why didn’t you ask her to marry you? 
You mean to, don’t you?’’ 

“All in good time; I’m in no such mighty 
hurry.” 

“I know / wouldn’t take you,” said Dolly, 
viciously linking the final button. 

“I guess I shouldn’t be such a fool as to 
ask you,” responded her brother. “As it 
happens, I mean to get an answer out of her 
to-night.” 

Dolly was silent. His name was the first 
word that rose to her lips: his Christian name, 
the usual preface of an appeal. 

“ Bernard.” 

“Well?” 

“ Bernard, Angela Laurenson isn’t like me. 
You ought to be careful; it’s easy to hurt her 
feelings.” 

“I know all about that.” 

''Do you?” 

“Yes,” said Bernard. “I do. I’m not an 
idiot.” 

Trying to draw sentimental confessions from 
Bernard was like trying to pull a worm out of 
its hole by the tail. Dolly felt that he was 
slipping away, and put one last question. 

“You do really care for her, Bernard?” 

He deliberated for a minute; a most literal 
truthfulness informed all Bernard’s assertions. 


221 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


“Well, I wouldn’t jump down into the lions 
after her glove, like that chap in what’s-his- 
name,” he said at last: “because I call that 
silly. But if it was a question of her or me — 
I guess I’d give my life for hers. I’m not quite 
a fool, Dolly ; I can manage for myself. I say, 
do you think I ought to keep on these beastly 
gloves at dinner ? If they have birds or things 
of that kind, they’ll split down the back.’’ 

Bernard had not been quite open with his 
sister. At that very moment Miss Laurenson 
was sitting in her room with her face in her 
hands and an outspread letter before her. 
She had received it in the afternoon, and thus 
it ran: 

“ Dear Miss Laurenson, — You showed yesterday 
that you did not want me to speak, so I am not go- 
ing to bother you with a tete-a-tete. I am writing 
this instead, to tell you that Fanes brings in about 
three-fifty a year net, and in the past five years I have 
saved over a thoiisand out of this, which invested in 
Guaranteed Egyptians at four per cent, brings it up to 
four hundred. I also expect the value of the prop- 
erty to go up. My age is twenty-eight, and I am in 
sound health. I have a fairly good temper. I have 
not done anything that I should be ashamed of you 
seeing, barring getting tipsy half a dozen times before I 
was twenty, and carting manure. I used to poach on 
Merton’s land one time, but only when I thought he 
sold the game. I never have thought about any 
other girl but you. Will you, if you think you can 
222 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


take me, just put some white roses in your dress to- 
night ? If you wear red ones, I shall take it to mean 
No. I hope very much you won’t wear red ones. I 
am sorry I can’t send you any flowers, but our roses 
were all blighted this year, and anyway I know Mer- 
ton has plenty in his garden. 

“ Ever yours with devotion, 

“ Bernard de Beaufort Fane.” 

Having laughed over this letter till she 
cried, Angela was now almost ready to cry in 
good earnest. After great searchings of heart 
she had come to admit that Bernard was all the 
world to her; but she would much have pre- 
ferred to renounce the world and remain her 
maiden self. Angela was a little ascetic. 
Though she loved him truly, it cost her a 
bitter struggle to admit a man into her life; 
especially a man such as Bernard, who would 
gently brush away all her delicate scruples and 
cobwebs of privacy, and take possession of her, 
body and soul. She could trust him to be 
gentle, but would he understand ? To Angela, 
wifehood seemed a strange and terrible thing. 
She feared it — she feared its prelude of be- 
trothal: seeing herself more clearly than at 
other times, she confessed that hers was the 
nature for obeying, Bernard’s for ruling. And 
how she should fare if her lover turned tyrant ? 

“I’ve brought your flowers,” Lai said, 
223 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


coming in with a cluster of white roses and 
ferns. They were prettily arranged, though a 
little stiff. But Angela looked doubtful. 

“ Don’t you care for them? I thought they 
went well with your dress.” 

“ I do like them ; but — ” Angela pushed over 
Bernard’s letter and looked away. Lai smiled 
as he read it. 

“Well, and aren’t you going to wear them?” 

“Shall I?” 

“Are you in doubt?” 

“Yes, rather.” 

“Why?” 

“ I’m afraid, Lai.” 

“Is it that you don’t care — ?” 

Angela shook her head. 

“Then you must wear them,” Lai said. He 
came to her and fastened them. Angela looked 
down at the roses and up at his face ; suddenly 
she threw her arms round his neck. 

“I’m a humbug, Lai,” she said. “You 
always ruled, not I.” 

“Do you think so?” 

“Yes. And he will. And I’m afraid.” 

Lai held her quietly. Presently he said: “ I 
think you’re mistaken, Angel.” 

“Do you?” Angela said, looking up with 
tears on her lashes. “Do you really, Lai?” 

“I do. Fane isn’t exactly an ogre, you 
224 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


know.” Lai smiled. “I shall be quite ready 
to give you away to him.” 

“And glad, too, I expect: ungrateful boy 
that you are!” Angela released herself, and 
began with unsteady fingers to pull out her 
crushed curls. “Wait till you’re married your- 
self, and see how you like it!” 

“I see no immediate prospect of that,” said 
Lai. “ And now, does it not occur to you that 
we might go down to dinner?” 

Angela slipped her hand through his arm, 
and so they descended the stairs. They made 
a handsome couple, though Lai looked quieter 
and lazier even than was his wont. On the 
last step, Angela came to a pause of dismay; 
she coloured crimson, snatched her hand from 
Lai’s arm, and fled into the drawing-room. Lai 
hesitated; he also changed colour; finally, he 
made a very formal little bow, and followed his 
sister without speaking. Dolly and Bernard 
had just been admitted to the hall. 

“I guess that chap’s gone cracked!” said 
Bernard, sotto voce. But Dolly held her 
peace. 

There were present at the dinner only the 
house party, the Laurensons and Mrs. Prideaux, 
besides Dr. Maude, whose faint, acidulated 
cynicism, said Ella Merton, was like a sauce 
piquante. The voice of justice told Dolly that 
225 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


she must let Lai know he was out of disgrace, 
but it did not say that she was bound to explain 
herself ; and so, after smiling at him and taking 
his hand when they met in the drawing-room, 
she eschewed his society like the very plague. 
She set herself to behave nicely ; she said little, 
and that little discreetly, and kept under the 
wing of her hostess. She was amused to see 
that Angela Laurenson was pursuing the same 
tactics, except that she had chosen Maud 
Prideaux for her house of defence. 

Dolly went down with Norman Merton, and 
found herself placed at table between him and 
Lai. She gave Lai the view of a neck as white 
as milk, and a rich sweep of chestnut hair 
glossed with light like the roll of a stream at a 
weir ; and she talked to her host all the evening. 
Merton was shrewd and pleasant, and had 
plenty to say. Twice Lai addressed her: to 
his first speech she gave a brief, cool answer 
over her shoulder; to the second she gave no 
answer at all. Lai did not repeat his words, nor 
did he again try to catch her attention. He 
turned quietly to his partner; he could afford 
to be patient because he was resolute. 

Bernard also was content to be patient, but 
within reasonable limits, which he felt that 
Angela had overpassed ; she wore his roses, but 
she had not given him a word that evening. 

226 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


His partner at dinner was Maud Prideaux; 
and, following that simple strategy which goes 
by the name of cheek, he took her into his 
confidence and besought her help. Maud was 
already pledged to Angela, but that did not 
hinder her from deserting to Bernard’s side. 
She was a bom match-maker. As soon as the 
men came up after dinner she proposed a 
moonlight excursion to see the lake. Mrs. 
Merton sighed forth a rapturous assent, sent 
her husband for cloaks, and apostrophised the 
stars in an impromptu verse. A French win- 
dow led out to a balcony, from which steps ran 
down to the garden. Mrs. Merton went first, 
to show the way; Angela, whose eyes were 
quite blind in the dusk, was a few steps be- 
hind. Maud Prideaux shot Bernard a mis- 
chievous glance of invitation, stooped down, 
and carefully tied up a bow which had not 
come undone. In an instant Angela found her 
chaperon’s place usurped by a tall figure, which 
bent down and said, in a moving whisper: 

“ I guess you’d better take my arm or you’ll 
tumble down the steps.” 

This time Angela did not refuse ; she laid her 
fingers on his sleeve with a queer, wild thrill of 
feeling, half pleasure and half fear. Bernard 
put his own hand over hers. “I’m no end 
glad,” he said, quite simply. 

227 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


Then he led her, trusting to his guidance for 
every step, down a lonely, mossy path through 
a copse of trees : to Bernard’s eyes the darkness 
was clear as daylight. When they were as 
far from the moonlit lake as the size of the 
garden would permit, he began to talk. 

“I expect you’re pretty shy of taking me, 
aren’t you?” he said, gently. 

“ Rather. I — I should be — always — who- 
ever it was.” 

“I suppose girls are made like that.” 
Bernard paused to contemplate the strangeness 
of feminine nature. “ But what I mean is 
that you feel it’s specially risky taking me, 
because you and I are so different. Don’t 
you?” 

Angela said nothing. 

“ Dolly was trying to lecture me about that 
this evening,” Bernard pursued. “She was 
saying you aren’t like her. Well, I should 
think anybody could see that who wasn’t an 
ass. Dolly could walk twenty miles and come 
up smiling, and I shouldn’t let you do more than 
about two. And it’s just the same with your 
feelings. You want looking after, and taking 
care of, and that sort of thing.” 

“I’m used to taking care of myself, and Lai, 
too,” Angela pointed out. 

“Well, of course, you won’t do that any 
228 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


more,” Bernard assured her, with calm au- 
thority. “Laurenson dl have to shift for him- 
self, he’s old enough; and I shall look after you. 
When we’re married, you know, I sha’n’t let 
you do the dairy work or any of the things 
Dolly does. We shall have to have another 
servant; but that won’t matter so much, as 
you’ve got some money of your own.” 

“ How do you know I have money of my 
own?” 

“Mrs. Merton told Dolly you’d got eight 
hundred a year. Of course, one can’t put 
much faith in what she says, but there’s no 
smoke without a fire; so I guessed you had 
some. You have, haven’t you?” 

“Mrs. Merton never exaggerates. I have 
what she said I had.” 

“Have you really eight hundred a year? 
It ’ll come in handy at Fanes.” 

“ I hope you didn’t ask me for my money,” 
Angela said, with a forlorn laugh. 

“I shouldn’t be such a fool.” 

“ Why not?” 

“I’d rather be comfortable than rich, any 
day. I wouldn’t saddle myself with a girl I 
didn’t like, not if she had ten thousand a year. 
I can’t stand rows. I suppose if it got too 
bad you could arrange a separation, but I’d 
sooner lose the money than have the bother of 
229 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


that. A man should keep his private affairs 
out of people’s mouths.” 

“I’m glad you don’t think I shall make 
rows,” said Angela. “But why did you want 
me, then?” 

“Well, I don’t know.” Bernard paused and 
meditated. “ It wasn’t because of your money, 
nor yet because you were pretty ; I know that. 
I only know, when I saw you that night, I felt 
like the chap in Tennyson. You know; he saw 
the girl at home in her oldest dress, looking 
no end shabby, and he just said to himself: 
Here, by God's rood, is the one maid for me. 
Well, I said the same; I made up my mind I’d 
have you, right away.” 

“Suppose I’d refused you?” 

“I didn’t think you would, in the long- 
run.” 

“Oh!” 

“I don’t mean exactly that,” Bernard 
hastily added, feeling that he had not put the 
case quite prettily. “I mean that I had a 
kind of idea all along that you liked me, 
just as I liked you, directly we met.” 

Under the leaves and the soft summer stars 
they paced the path together. It was so 
dark that Angela bent her head to avoid an 
empty shadow, and walked straight into the 
brush of soft leaves which an elm-tree drooped 
230 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


across the way. She stood still while Bernard 
freed her hair : expeditiously he did it, with no 
tender dallyings, and she was truly thankful. 
Angela was beginning to see what life would 
be to Bernard Fane’% wife. Stable as the 
English soil beneath their feet, temperate as 
this English summer night, with no tropic 
storms and no yawning earthquakes, so would 
his love be ; the cupboards in his house held no 
skeletons. All Angela’s adventurous thoughts 
of freedom were coming home to shelter under 
a man’s protecting care. It was true that 
Bernard had developed a talent for saying 
what should not be said; but that Angela 
resentfully ascribed to Dolly’s interference. 
She saw herself darning her stalwart protector’s 
socks by the fireside. The picture was touch- 
ing and beautiful. Yet — 

“I hope you’ll like Fanes,” Bernard said, 
tucking her hand comfortably under his arm. 
“It’s all right now, but it’s a bit lonely in 
winter.” 

“We might spend the winter in London.” 

“There’s no one but me to see to things; I 
couldn’t get away.” 

“Couldn’t you have a manager?” 

“ Managers aren’t to be trusted. If you 
want a thing well done, I guess you must do 
it yourself.” 

i6 


231 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


“ But do you propose to stay at Fanes all 
the year round?” 

“No. You’ll want some sort of a holiday, 
of course. I dare say I could get away for a 
fortnight or so in January; things are pretty 
slack then.” 

Angela was silent for a space ; then she said, 
with some firmness: “I’m afraid I shall have 
to be a good deal away, then; I must be in 
London sometimes to attend meetings and 
look after the different societies in which I am 
interested. I shall ask Mrs. Prideaux to put 
me up; that is pleasanter than going to a 
hotel.” 

“Do you mean, you go up without me?” 

“As you can’t get away, I suppose I must.” 

“I shouldn’t like that at all.” 

“Why not?” 

“It’s jolly bad for husband and wife not to 
be together. A woman’s place is with her 
husband. Besides, people are safe to talk, and 
that’s a thing I can’t stand. I guess I’ll have 
to come up with you when you’re obliged to 
go. I dare say you’ll chuck a good many of 
the things after we’re married; girls generally 
do.” 

“Can’t you trust me in London alone?” 
Angela said, in a very quiet voice. 

“No, I can’t — ” Bernard was beginning, in 
232 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


all innocence, wishing to point out to Angela 
the perils of the London streets, where she had 
lived all her life, when she suddenly amazed 
him by withdrawing her hand very decidedly, 
and facing him in an unmistakably belligerent 
attitude. 

“ In that case, Mr. Fane,” she said, her voice 
trembling with indignation, “I think we had 
better part at once.” 

“Why, Angela!” 

“Don’t call me that, please. There are 
your flowers.” She cast the roses at his feet 
with a dramatic gesture. “Your idea of a 
wife seems to be a — a kind of carpet for you to 
walk on. You don’t know why you wanted 
to marry me; I’m sure I don’t know, either, 
since you say it was not for my money. You 
evidently don’t think I’m good for anything 
useful, and you’ve told me that I’m not or- 
namental. I’m not fit to do any of the things 
Dolly does ; I’m not to walk two miles without 
your permission; I’m not to be trusted to go 
about in London at all, and you even expect 
me to give up the work I’ve been doing for 
years, and can do! Thank you, Mr. Fane, the 
prospect is not sufficiently attractive. I must 
trouble you to look for a wife who is willing 
to fall in with your peculiar tastes. Fm 
not!” 


233 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


She turned her back and swept away, leaving 
Bernard staring. He ran after her and caught 
her up. 

“Look here, Angela — ” 

“Let me alone at once!” 

“ But you don’t understand — ” 

“I understand quite enough. You don’t 
imderstand how to behave.” 

“Angela, I do love you.” 

“I don’t love you, and I don’t want to!” 

She broke away, and he let her go. For five 
minutes he stood quite still. Bernard had no 
lack of wits, and he now saw his mistakes quite 
plainly, the very mistakes against which Dolly 
had tried to warn him. It was the bitterest 
blow he had ever had in his life, and the 
minutes he spent there alone were primed with 
salutary reflections. 

Angela, running out of the wood, came upon 
Maud Prideaux, who was enjoying a moonlight 
flirtation with Norman Merton. 

“My dear child!” 

“I — beg your pardon,” said Angela, breath- 
less and confused. Maud gave her a sharp 
look. She turned on her companion. “Mr. 
Merton, you can run away now and play; 
I’m going to talk to Angela. Mind, the bet 
stands.” 

“All right, Mrs. Prideaux,” Merton answered, 
234 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


laughing as he went away. Maud scanned 
Angela’s discomposed countenance with a 
sparkling eye. 

“What have you been doing?” she asked, in 
her usual drawl. 

Angela did not reply. 

“Dear, dear! Refusing Bernard Fane, upon 
my honour! Really, Angela, it’s too bad to 
lead the poor man on as you did and then 
throw him over.” 

“ I did not lead him on.” 

Maud shrugged her shoulders. “You’re a 
shocking little flirt, my dear, but I really think 
you might have let the poor barbarian go. I 
shouldn’t wonder if the gardener swept him up 
to-morrow, with his throat cut. There’s poor 
Lai, too, ready to shoot himself. The way 
you young peojAe behave is quite dreadful; I 
should have been ashamed to do so.” 

As Mrs. Prideaux before her marriage had 
been the most open and shameless flirt, Angela 
could not but resent this remark. “ I never 
flirted with Mr. Fane,” she said. 

“How about his roses? I see you’ve given 
them back to him.” 

This was purely a guess, based on an observa- 
tion of glances during dinner and the absence 
of the flowers from Angela’s corsage. Miss 
Laurenson grew warmly red, and said nothing. 

235 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


Maud’s kindly inquisitive eyes searched her; 
she tapped her on the shoulder with her fan. 
“Come, tell me all about it. My dear child, 
what have you been doing? You’re like Lot’s 
wife, all tears.’’ 

“Thank you, I’m not salt yet,” said Angela, 
whose eyes were still quite dry. 

“Wasn’t it Lot’s wife? I don’t pretend to 
be clever; it wasn’t the fashion for girls to know 
anything in my day. What have you been 
saying to Bernard Fane?” 

Sure of an interested listener, Angela told 
her tale. At its close she got a surprising 
shock. “Do you know what you ought to do 
now?” said Mrs. Prideaux. 

“What?” 

“Go right back and beg his pardon.” 

‘ ‘ Maud ! I’d rather die !’ ’ 

“Yes, and to-morrow you’ll be dying — dying 
to go and do it, but it ’ll be too late then. 
You’re simply desperately in love with him, 
can’t say his name without blushing — yes, 
there she goes, the colour of a poppy! The 
child says she’s not in love with him! Well, 
well!” 

“I hate him!” Angela declared, hiding her 
crimson cheeks in her hands. 

“ My dear child, hatred’s the back door into 
love. Think of him, lying on the damp ground 
236 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


with his throat cut! — such a nice throat, too! 
He’s adorably handsome, for a barbarian. Of 
course, he drops an h or so now and then — ” 

“ He never does.” 

“Doesn’t he? Well, no doubt you know 
better than I do. I wouldn’t have your 
conscience, Angela.” 

“ He was very rude to me.” 

“Asked you to marry him, didn’t he? 
Shockin’ presumption!” 

“ I only told him the truth.” 

“When I refused a man, I always did it 
nicely and tried to spare his feelings. I don’t 
see why you are so angry with the poor man; 
I’m sure it was very brave of him to fall in 
love with you.” 

Silence for a little while. Angela said at 
last: “Maud, do you really think I ought to 
beg his pardon?” 

“ Haven’t the slightest doubt of it, my dear.” 

“It will look as though I wanted — ” 

“Exactly what you do want. You’ve been 
talking a great deal about the rights of women 
all your life; haven’t you found out yet that a 
woman’s best right is to obey her husband?” 

“ No, I haven’t, and I don’t think it is.” 

“Then it’s time you learned that it is. We 
aren’t made for anything else, my dear, you 
and I ; we’re ordinary women, and we must 

237 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


make the best of it. You can’t imitate Dolly 
Fane, so don’t try to.” 

“It’s the very last thing I should do!” 

“Well, go and beg the barbarian’s pardon, 
then; she would never do that.” Maud had 
a grudge against Dolly because she disliked 
gossip. 

“I canHr 

“ Nonsense, my dear child! You’re going to. 
There’s your path ; run along, like a good little 
girl, and be sure you don’t tumble . on your 
nose. — And there’s half my bet won!” 

Maud had sent her off with a maternal pat, 
and Angela found herself going obediently. 
Instinct led truer than reason. Down the 
shadowy path she came blindly hurrying, and 
ran full against Bernard, leaning motionless 
against a tree. 

“Angela !” 

“Oh, I’m so sorry!” Angela said, with a sob. 

Thus was peace established ; but Angela soon 
found that in yielding she had stooped to 
conquer: her bear was transformed into a 
lamb. She might live at Timbuctoo, if it 
pleased her; she might wander through London 
alone till one in the morning, though plainly 
Bernard did not like the prospect. 

“But, Bernard, why shouldn’t I?” Angela 
cried. 


238 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


“ Because you’re so awfully pretty,” was the 
surprising answer. 

Bernard! I thought you said I wasn’t 
pretty!” 

“I don’t know where you got that idea 
from.” 

“ You said you didn’t want me for my looks.” 

“Neither do I; I should want you just the 
same if you were like a gorilla.” 

“ But do you think me pretty ?” 

“ I should hope so!” 

“As pretty as Dolly?” 

“Dolly? Dolly’s a milkmaid and you’re a 
princess. Any one can see there’s no compari- 
son. Dolly’s well enough, barring her carroty 
hair; but you’re so awfully distinguished-look- 
ing. I don’t see why you want me to tell you 
this; you must know it already.” 

“I like compliments — I expect compliments; 
that’s one of the things you have to learn.” 

“It ’ll come pretty easy. I shall only have 
to say out what I think.” 

“If you talk like that,” said Angela, “per- 
haps I’ll let you take me about London, after 
all. Now we must go back to the house; it’s 
getting shamefully late.” 

“ I don’t want to go up vet.” 

“Ido.” 

Bernard looked down at her and laughed. 

239 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


“ All right,” he said ; “ I guess you mean to have 
your own way.” 

They came together slowly up the garden. 
The gold rectangle of the uncurtained window 
shone out in the dusk ; the figures of Dolly and 
of Mrs. Merton appeared on the balcony, 
silhouetted against the light. Ella soon went 
in, but Dolly lingered, gazing at the dusky 
woods and the diamond gleam of the lake. 
Suddenly another figure came swiftly up the 
steps. Dolly turned at once towards the 
window; the lamplight fell on her face. Lai 
laid his hand on her arm and spoke in her ear : 
a single sentence, no more. Bernard saw his 
sister turn crimson. She answered briefly, broke 
away, went into the house. Lai fell back into 
the shadow. 

“Did you see that?” whispered Angela. 

“M’yes. I rather think I did.” 

“Oh, Bernard! What did she say?” 

“ I haven’t the least idea.” 

“Let’s go in directly,” said Angela, in high 
excitement. 

On the balcony they passed Lai; but Lai’s 
face was never the index of his feelings, and it 
baffled curiosity. From the threshold Angela 
looked round for Dolly, to discover that, 
whatever had happened a minute ago, Dolly 
was not thinking of it now. She stood, one of 
240 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


a group surrounding Norman Merton, who had 
the evening paper and was reading aloud from 
it. Pretty little Mrs. Merton was very grave, 
her eyes soft with pity and distress; Maud 
Prideaux looked horrified. Dolly’s face 
Angela could not decipher ; it was held by some 
thought more powerful than pity or horror. 

. . Had the explosion taken place five 
minutes earlier the carnage must have been 
frightful, and many families deprived of their 
breadwinners. As it is, we regret to an- 
notmce the death of Mr. Lucian de Saumarez, 
the well-known author, who was a partner in 
the business, and of the manager, Mr. Smith 
Charlesworth. Both were standing too close 
to the scene of destruction to be able to escape. 
It is feared that the bodies, which are buried 
tmder a huge accumulation of debris, will never 
be recovered. Much sympathy is felt for Mr. 
Farquhar, who has been deprived at one blow 
of his friend and his fortune — ’ ” 

“Is Mr. Farquhar hurt?” 

Dolly spoke out, careless who might hear. 

“No, Miss Fane, Farquhar’s perfectly safe.” 

“Not hurt! How did it happen?” 

“No one knows at present, but they seem 
to think there was foul play.” 

White as death, she turned away, listening 
to no more. Lai, who had just come in, was 
241 


LOVE IN CHIEF 

standing by the window; Dolly’s eyes sought 
his. “Will you go out to Petit-Fays for me?” 
Angela heard her say. And: “I will go wher- 
ever you wish,” Lai answered without hesi- 
tation. 


XVII 


THE ONE SHALL BE TAKEN 

O N the day after the meeting at Swan- 
borough, Noel Farquhar walked in upon 
Lucian in his room and found him sitting in 
his shirt and trousers trying to write. It was 
intensely hot, and he had cast off his coat and 
his waistcoat and his collar, his tie and his 
boots, had posted open the door and flung wide 
the window, and hung across a string of drip- 
ping towels to keep out the sun. Nevertheless, 
he was mopping his brow with a dirty old 
penwiper-handkerchief, and his face was colour- 
less but for its tan. 

“Sit down,” he said; “sit down and let me 
swear at you for a bit; I’m tired of harangu- 
ing a condemned desk that doesn’t respond. 
What’s the matter, sonny? You look as blue 
as a thunder-cloud with cholera-morbus.” 

“ Can you listen to business or can you not ?” 
“ Ou ay, my trusty frien’ ; I’ve been chasing 
my plot for two solid hours, and it’s clane 
disthracted I am. I’ve got ‘chainless’ twice 

243 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


on one page, and so sure as I put down that 
blessed word I know Til have to tear up the 
lot. There it goes!” He tore the sheets 
across and across and flung them at the paper- 
basket. “ There was rather a sweet girl in it, 
too; I’ll use her up some day for a three- 
thousander. You were saying — ” 

“Will you come rotmd the works with me 
and Charlesworth ?” 

“What, again? Fve done it once this day.” 

“I want to go round in the dinner -hour, 
while the men are out. There’s something up. 
I’d swear it, and Charlesworth says the same.” 

“If it’s anything exciting. I’m your man,” 
said Lucian, completing his costume with a 
pair of carpet slippers and a white pith helmet, 
in which he looked as swarthy as a Hindoo. 
“Anyway, this is the last time. Come on, and 
I’ll post my letter to her on the way.” 

He looked at Farquhar, gleefully anticipating 
a flash of jealousy, and he had his wish. He 
laughed, tossed up the letter and caught it, 
and smote Farquhar on the shoulder as they 
went down - stairs. “Only a fortnight more, 
sonny, and then we shall know!” 

But Farquhar did not find an answer. 
Prudence and friendship combined to keep his 
wild-beast jealousy in order, but he never 
even tried to cast it out. 


244 


LOVE IN CHIEF 

In the porch they found Charlesworth 
waiting impassive, drawn back into the shade. 
Summer had come suddenly upon them with 
a burning heat; the roads were padded with 
dust, herbs drooped as if they were broken, 
brick walls fumed like the outposts of Hades. 
Creeping up from the south, certain blue, hazy 
clouds, their scrolled rims tinged with amber 
and saffron, were surely invading the sky. In 
the quarry not a man was left ; the intense heat, 
radiated and reflected from the granite walls, 
made the place a purgatory. Mica crystals 
scintillated in the grey dust. The noonday 
sun was shining straight down into the pit; 
the shrunken river, like a strip of blue satin, 
crept without coolness below along the cliffs; 
only under the great rock, which stood out 
now like a wen on the face of the hill, was any 
shadow to be found. Tow^ards that shade 
Lucian promptly made his way, and there sat 
down on a wheelbarrow. 

All the preliminaries were over, and the rock 
was ready to be blasted. On three sides it 
stood free, and across the fourth, at the back of 
the block, ranged the drilled holes following the 
line of fracture between the fine stone and the 
coarser. With what care Charlesworth had 
assigned and executed the boring and the 
tamping Lucian knew; yet the quarry-master 

245 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


was now prepared to examine it all again, 
patiently testing what could be tested, rigor- 
ously fulfilling his duty according to the laws 
of a pride which forbade imperfections. Far- 
quhar helped him; Lucian, who was really a 
superfluous person, sat on his barrow and 
gibed at both. 

A steam-whistle called the men back to work 
at one o’clock. Hidden behind the rock, 
Lucian had a good view of them as they trooped 
in, and he was surprised by their behaviour. 
The Belgians are by nature friendly and polite ; 
as many as knew Lucian (and nine-tenths of 
them did) had always for him a smile, a wave 
of the hat, a word of kind greeting ; but Charles- 
worth was severely ignored. One youth went 
to the length of a long nose behind the manager’s 
back. An English lad of his own age forth- 
with fell upon him, and after a brief and silent 
struggle proceeded to wipe the ground with 
his prostrate enemy until he craved for mercy ; 
but the boy had merely expressed the feelings 
of his elders. Another point which perplexed 
Lucian was the silence of the men; a few were 
whispering together and glancing between 
their words at Charlesworth, but the usual 
lively chatter was not to be heard. 

“Not much of the peace-on-earth business 
here, is there?” Charlesworth remarked to the 
246 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


philosopher on the wheelbarrow. “ I don’t go 
aroimd in these lanes after sundown without my 
revolver.” 

” Think they’d go as far as that ?” 

“Don’t know; they hate me like poison, 
anyway. I can put up with that now we’ve 
got this business through ; I guess we’ll pretty 
soon see who’s master here.” 

Lucian nodded. He was not so sure as 
Charlesworth that force is the best preventive 
of rebellion ; in fact, he held the heretical idea 
that he could have managed the men better 
himself. 

“You going to stay here till the thing’s going 
to pop?” 

“I mean to stay right here till Mr. Far- 
quhar’s lighted the fuse. There’ll be time then 
to clear out; it’ll take ten minutes before it 
explodes. I don’t want any one meddling with 
these cartridges.” 

Lucian had no wish to face the sun before 
he was forced to ; he waited with Charlesworth 
under the rock. Both were excited. Far- 
quhar, standing beside the igniter thirty feet 
away, was noticeably nonchalant. The warn- 
ing whistle sounded at five minutes to two ; 
and, as so often before, the workers swarmed 
away to places of shelter, some to the summit 
of the pit, others into chambers cut in the 
247 


17 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


rock where no shock of explosion could reach 
them. Farquhar gave them five minutes’ grace. 
A bell sounded; and the watchers saw him 
stoop and fire the fuse. Immediately Charles- 
worth uncrossed his legs and stepped towards 
the gate ; and immediately after came a terrific 
detonation, a terrific eruption of rock, black 
smoke, and flame and fumes and flying crags; 
and then the collapse, as it were, of the firma- 
ment itself; and, lastly, darkness. 

Those who saw it said that at the moment 
of explosion a huge ball of smoke puffed out 
and immediately came rolling over and over 
in black convolutions, rent by ghastly chasms 
and caverns of sulphurous gloom. They said 
that the fire flashed out starwise, radiating in a 
dozen spokes of gold from one common centre ; 
and that the second detonation (for there were 
two) was more violent than the first. Far- 
quhar saw nothing of this. He was hurled to 
the earth by the first shock and pinned down 
there under the fragments during the second; 
and when he found his senses and sat up he 
came near fainting again, for the pit was 
poisoned with fumes. He fell back, and, 
lying face downward, breathed in the less 
polluted lower air until the inrushing wind 
had time to sweeten that above. Then he 
248 


LOVE IN CHIEF 

made another effort, and began to shake off 
the rocks which had fallen on him. He was 
horribly bruised ; another man w’ould have 
been disabled. But Farquhar was by nature 
insensitive to suffering, and, besides, his will 
scorned to submit to the weakness of his body ; 
he refused to be fettered by pain. This man 
of many sins was not planning for his own 
safety; he was remembering only that Lucian 
had been standing under the rock destroyed, 
and he swore at the impediments that delayed 
him as though he could wither them up by 
the fire of his curses. He struggled free, and 
saw lying imder him the fragments of the 
detonator, with a length of fuse attached. 
The appearance of the fuse surprised him, and 
he took it up. Crossed threads of orange 
worsted ran over it. By that mark he knew 
it for what it was: not the ordinary slow fuse 
which should have been used, but the other, 
instantaneous kind, where gunpowder is re- 
placed by a quick match, which burns at the 
rate of thirty feet per second. Now the cause 
of the catastrophe was clear. Some one had 
substituted this for the proper fuse, and, to 
conceal the change, had picked out the dis- 
tinctive orange threads. Only this piece, hid- 
den in the body of the detonator, had escaped 
notice to show the manner of their treachery. 

249 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


Farquhar dismissed the authors of the crime 
to perdition, along with their instrument. 
Now he was standing up and could see the ruin 
that had been wrought; the beautiful stone, 
destined for such fine purposes, was shattered, 
almost pulverized. It was not till afterwards, 
when the evidence came to be weighed, that 
he realised how this had come about; for the 
substitution of the quick fuse should have 
made a difference in the time of the explosion 
but not in its results. The truth was that only 
half the strands had been changed; the rest 
were left as slow fuse; so that instead of one 
there were two explosions, which, acting 
separately, broke the rock to pieces. But 
Farquhar cared little for his ruined enterprise. 
He looked round the smoking amphitheatre, he 
saw the faces of the men who had come with 
him from England, who were of one blood with 
those entombed ; he lifted his arm, from which 
the sleeve had been wrenched together with 
part of the flesh, and called out to them in their 
native tongue : 

“Men, there are two Englishmen buried 
under these rocks; it’s our business to get 
them out.’’ 

The st^range acoustic properties of the quarry 
carried his words to every man there. He put 
a point to them by himself lifting a pick, which 
250 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


the explosion had cast at his feet, and be- 
ginning to work. In two minutes a dozen men 
were working at his side; in ten, every soul, 
native or foreign, was taking his part. To do 
the men justice, murder had not been in their 
thoughts; they had aimed only to spoil the 
rock. If the manager, who usually fired the 
mines, should happen to get hurt, it would be a 
lamentable incident ; but the presence of 
Charlesworth and Lucian immediately under 
the rock they had not foreseen, and, indeed, 
had not known of till Farquhar spoke. Now 
they could only hope to atone by willing labour. 

Through all that long hot summer afternoon 
they toiled and toiled and toiled. Men from 
the village of Petit-Fays volunteered to relieve 
those who were spent, and took their turn 
with the pick in rotation, but Farquhar re- 
fused to leave work. He tied a strip of linen 
round his wounded arm, which grew more 
painful when the muscles contracted; but he 
went on digging. He knew that his immense 
and disciplined strength had a special value. 
Mentally he could not rest and physically he 
would not, though the men began to look 
at one another as the hours passed in vain. 
Sunset found them still working ; and the 
gracious coolness of night with its million 
stars. At last, at midnight, one of the English 

251 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


workmen (the same whom Lucian had liked so 
much) came to Farquhar and said, very re- 
spectfully : 

“ Beg pardon, sir, but is it any use going on ?” 

“Use? I should hope so,” said Farquhar, 
straightening his shoulders and pushing back 
his fair hair. “What do you mean?” 

“ Me and my mates would be willing to work 
on any time if there was any chance of getting 
either of them out alive — ” 

“D’ you mean to say you think there’s no 
chance?” 

“We’re afraid not, sir,” said the first man; 
and a murmur of assent went up from the 
others, who had left work and clustered round. 
Farquhar’ s brows came together, and he stared 
at them as though he could not understand their 
speech. 

“You say there’s no chance? I say that’s 
nonsense. I’d never have thought that Eng- 
lishmen would shirk.” 

“We ain’t shirking,” said the spokesman, 
rather proudly. “I’d lay there isn’t one of us 
as wouldn’t be ready to work his hands off 
if there was any chanst at all; but there ain’t, 
not a mite. I seen a good many blow-ups in 
my time, and I say there’s no man could be 
living now after all that mess had fallen on 
him. If they wasn’t killed outright they’d 
252 


LOVE IN CHIEF 

have been stifled. Anybody as knows ’ll say 
the same.” 

Again the murmured assent followed his 
words. 

Farquhar still stood staring, but his face 
changed, cleared, hardened. Fever was run- 
ning riot in his veins, and he was not wholly 
master of his words, else he would not have 
laid such a charge against them; for he knew 
it was not true. They had worked till they 
were spent; the pose of their figures as they 
waited showed it more plainly than words. 
And against that mass of granite all their toil 
seemed futile. Of what use to continue ? 

“You’re quite right, and I beg your pardon, 
men. Knock off to-night, then; we’ll take a 
fresh spell at it to-morrow, for I mean my 
friends to have Christian burial. I shall see 
that all you’ve done to-day is not forgotten.” 

As he had first begun work, so now he was 
first to leave off; he leaned his pick against 
a stone and turned homeward. In ten minutes 
the deserted quarry was left to the dews and 
the night. 


XVIII 


THE OTHER LEFT 

F ARQUHAR went home in a mood of black, 
resentful anger, which he aimed, since his 
creed disallowed a personal deity, at the callous 
rocks and the soulless forces of nature. He 
forgot grief as he had forgotten pain. He 
walked on, swinging his injured arm and 
cursing as he went; and in this temper he 
came to the hotel, and received the sympathy 
of a number of uninteresting people without 
betraying a vestige of his actual sentiments. 
They thought him magnanimous, heroic, op- 
pressed with bitter grief; and with the good 
taste of their nation they left him alone with 
his sorrow. 

In the salon place was laid for one, and the 
sight sickened Farquhar; it was like the turning 
of a screw in his breast. He paced the room 
for five minutes before he could bring himself 
even to sit down. There were two letters for 
him on his plate, blue on the thick white 
china. Bills they seemed, enclosed in thin 

254 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


blue envelopes of the ordinary oblong business 
shape ; he took them up idly and glanced at the 
address. One was for him and one for Lucian : 
both in Dolly Fane’s handwriting. 

Farquhar tore the envelope open and read : 

“ Dear Mr. Farquhar, — I have now made up my 
mind upon the question which you asked me. If 
you are still interested, and care to come and see 
me next time you are in England, I will tell you my 
decision. 

“ Sincerely yours, 

“ Mirabelle Fane.” 

The ink was bluish instead of black; the 
postmark Dove Green instead of Monkswell; 
the paper unlike Dolly’s stationery; but the 
handwriting was unmistakable. Farquhar 
crushed up the note in his strong fingers, as 
though to weld it into a solid mass. That 
she meant to reject him he could not doubt. 
He took up Lucian’s letter; he saw with fierce 
joy that she had omitted to seal it. Now at 
last, then, had come the chance which he had 
coveted, the chance of reading one of her 
letters; and of them all he would most dearly 
have desired to read this, wherein without 
doubt she opened her heart to her lover. To 
intrude into that sanctuary was the prime wish 
of his heart. 


255 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


He called to Laurette for a basin of hot 
water. If this last love-letter of his dea4 
friend were found tom open, he thought it 
might seem strange; and he wished to keep 
up to the end the fiction of his frank and 
honourable nature. Laurette had been sur- 
prised by his request for hot water; the smile 
with which he thanked her sent her away won- 
dering whether he had gone mad. Farquhar 
took care to lock her out before beginning his 
delightful task. The water was steaming hot. 
He held the flap of the envelope low down in 
the vapour, intending to loosen the gum; the 
thought that Lucian was dead and buried be- 
yond interference tmder several tons of granite 
was sweeter than honey, though he would have 
liked to bestow immortality upon Lucian’s 
spirit, that he might see this desecration and be 
powerless to protest. The paper turned grey 
and began to curl up from the edges ; it detached 
itself from the underleaf with a small distinct 
sound. Farquhar drew out the enclosure and 
opened it with insolent triumph. 

Long he sat there, motionless, the letter in 
his hand; but he did not read one word of it. 
After ten minutes he refolded it and replaced it 
and resealed the envelope and laid it down. 
He -unlocked the door and called to Laurette: 
“I’m going back to the quarry.” 

256 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


“But, monsieur, wherefore?” 

“To find Mr. de Saumarez. Whether he’s 
alive or dead, I’ll not rest till I have him. 
Tell your brothers, if you like; I shall work, 
whether I’m helped or no.” He passed her 
by in the hall with a look so fierce and fell 
that the girl shrank out of his way. 

One o’clock. The sweet plaintive tone of 
the church clock came down the valley from 
Vresse as Farquhar began to work. That 
mountain of granite, could he ever hope to 
remove it? He could not hope, but he could 
do it. He had gone through incredible exer- 
tions on that day, he was brought into pain by 
every stroke of the pick, he had neither hope to 
strengthen him, nor that excitement kin to 
delirium which had exalted him before to 
exalt him now; but the strength of his single 
will kept him unremittingly at the vain labour. 
And the force at the back of his will was the 
prime force of his life: devotion. All evil 
passions in his nature had in turn ranged 
themselves against that nobler quality, and 
been defeated. If a man ever was the slave 
of love, that was Noel Farquhar. He had 
purpose and lust and will to leave Lucian 
stifling under the granite, and to pry into his 
letter, and to marry Dolly in triumph over his 
grave ; but that purpose and lust and will were 

257 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


bound by one stronger than he, and Noel 
Farquhar was labouring under incalculable dif- 
ficulties to get for his friend the joy which he 
coveted for himself. 

Laurette’s three brothers presently joined 
him, beginning to work in silence just over 
the spot where Farquhar judged that the 
victims were buried. The explosion had so 
greatly altered the configuration of the hill that 
certainty was not possible. Not one of the 
three had handled a pick before, and at first 
they damaged their own ankles more often than 
they removed any granite. There was a grue- 
some comicality in the scene; for Farquhar’ s 
silent fury of work seemed to hallow the place 
like a church so that they dared not speak, and 
the three young Belgians hopping about and 
suppressing curses would have made Lucian 
laugh in his grave could he have seen them. 
Towards dawn a blood-red oval moon rose above 
the pines and dropped a tremulous ladder of 
crimson across the stream; white mists spun 
ghost-dances over it. A cold change and a 
strange wind heralded the day’s birth; the 
dawn itself quickened its white pulse in an 
empty sky. Virgin light came first, then 
warmth and colour, like the pink flutings of a 
shell, and the first timorous love-notes of the 
birds ; and the three brothers looked at one an- 
258 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


other, and thought of dejeuner, and wondered 
how long the Englishman would continue to 
work. They themselves did not pause; and 
presently the youngest found his pick striking 
against solid rock amid the shale. He tried 
to work round it, but could not find the edge. 
The others came to help him, and soon they 
guessed that they had come on a large block 
of granite, expelled from the cliff by the first 
explosion, but hidden under the splinters from 
the second. So massive was it that to split 
it up by hand and cart it away seemed an im- 
possibly slow process; yet they dared not use 
the blasting - powder, for the sake of what 
might lie beneath. In this perplexity they 
leaned on their picks and looked to Farquhar 
for directions, Felix, the soft-handed pdiissier, 
surreptitiously wrapping his handkerchief round 
his blistered fingers. Farquhar’ s answer came 
briefly : “ Dig round it.” 

They fell to work, and before long discovered 
that, though the superficies of the block was 
large, its depth was small ; it was, as it were, a 
scale split off the face of the cliff. Conse- 
quently, they might hope to raise it by levers ; 
and again they turned to Farquhar for per- 
mission to fetch them. But a sombre fire 
dwelt in his eyes, and his answer came sternly : 
“Dig deeper.” 


259 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


Wondering at first, then themselves infected 
by his deep excitement, they obeyed him; and 
suddenly little Gustave, with an involuntary 
“Sacre!” fell fiat on his face. The point of his 
pick had gone through, imder the slab, to some 
cavity beneath. As Felix stooped to examine 
it, Farquhar thrust him sans ceremony out 
of the way and himself knelt down to explore. 
He could not find bottom, and he sprang up 
again, his excitement flaming out as he called 
to them to widen the hole. 

Now the toil went apace and the stones flew 
ringing aside. A gap appeared, and widened. 
Farquhar dropped on his knees and called, 
“Lucian! Lucian!” No answer. Up again 
and on with the work, and presently the gap 
was wide enough to admit a man’s head. 
Farquhar tried to crawl through, failed, and 
set the youngest of the boys to try; but it 
could not be done. Farquhar’ s impatience 
would not w’ait till the stone was imcovered. 
He knelt again, and thrust his head and the 
upper part of his shoulders under the slab; 
then, resting his palms fiat on the grormd, he 
put all his colossal strength forth into the effort 
to raise it. It weighed — how much? Two 
tons, the eldest youth hazarded: a guess cer- 
tainly exaggerated; for, as they watched, fas- 
cinated by the display of a power such as they 
260 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


had never imagined, fearing each moment to 
see him fail and faint, as they gazed and 
listened they heard the creakings of rending 
rocks and saw the gap grinning wider and 
Farquhar slowly raising himself on his hands 
and his bent arms straightening out till they 
stood firm as columns upbearing the architrave 
of a temple — until Farquhar stopped, and 
paused to see if the slab would subside, and 
then rose to his feet, white as ashes, his face 
seamed with grim lines and streaming with 
sweat. “Get a light,’’ he said. “Fm go- 
ing in.” 

One of them had a box of the odious little 
sulphur - matches so common abroad, which 
kindle with difficulty and bum at first with a 
blue light and an inexpressible smell, but are 
not easily extinguished. Neither had a candle, 
and neither was in the mood to go and fetch one. 
Farquhar struck several matches at once, and 
so soon as they burned steadily stepped down 
into the darkness. They could see the flame 
illumining his hair and reddening the side of his 
face, but of the aspect of the vault, nothing. 
Then they went out, or, rather, he dropped 
them. Sick with excitement, they heard him 
saying, in commonplace tones: 

“Lend a hand, will you? I can’t get them 
up over the edge.” 


261 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


He had Lucian’s body in his arms then, and, 
leaning downward into the dark, the three boys 
succeeded in dragging him into the air. Charles- 
worth’s huge frame was extricated with more 
difficulty; after, came Farquhar himself, who 
needed no help. He left Charles worth to live 
or die as fate decreed, and w^ent straight to 
Lucian. 

Neither was dead, though Lucian was near it ; 
long after Charlesworth was able to speak and 
walk, and even help to revive his companion in 
suffocation, he still lay deeply unconscious. 
His frail life was so easily imperilled ; and they 
had first been half poisoned by fumes and 
afterwards half stifled by their own breath. 
At the first explosion the slab had split off 
and fallen like a roof above them; the second 
blast piled rocks upon it and made it the 
roof of a tomb. All this Charlesworth narrated 
as he sat fanning Lucian’s face, himself death- 
ly white, with a jagged gash under his ear. 
Lucian looked like death itself, but still he 
breathed; and with the aid of copious douches 
of fresh water they brought him at last to 
consciousness. Farquhar straightway threw 
him over his shoulder and carried him to the 
hotel, leaving Charlesworth to follow as he 
might. Sad to say, the first use which Lucian 
made of his recovered speech was to murmur 
262 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


feebly at intervals, “I’m drunk — Fm drunk — 
O take me home to ma!’’ 

, At the hotel they received something like 
an ovation ; and before ten minutes had passed 
Laurette had told her aunt in the village, and 
the aunt her husband, and half the men in 
Vresse were hurrying out to give welcome. 
Nothing would content them but that Far- 
quhar should make an oration; and when he 
came out on the balcony, a ghastly figure with 
his bloodless face and the blood-stained band- 
age stained afresh on his arm, the}^ cheered 
him like a king. Never was any one in Vresse 
so popular as the impopular English master; 
they adored him for purging them from the guilt 
of blood. Even Charlesworth came in for a 
share of the glorification, because he had not 
let himself be murdered; and when they had 
shouted themselves hoarse, and trampled down 
all the tobacco growing in Laurette’s garden, 
and drunk six glasses apiece of Laurette’s most 
innocent beer, they went home wildly enthu- 
siastic and perfectly sober. Farquhar, having 
displayed his scars for their edification with his 
usual ironical smile, went to his room to wash 
and change before visiting Lucian. He conceived 
that for the present he would have no more 
trouble with his workmen. Then, at last, he took 
the two blue letters and went to Lucian’s room. 
i8 263 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


The invalid was lying dressed upon the sofa ; 
he had endured the doctor, had refused to go 
to bed, and was now ready to discuss his ex- 
perience with gusto. He had already been do- 
ing so with Charlesworth, who got up from a 
chair by the sofa when Farquhar came in. 
The invalid at once, patted the chair. 

“Sit down, sit down,” he said, hospitably. 
“ Let’s fight our battles all o’er again. I’ve 
been taking notes of everybody’s sensations 
all round, and I’m going to write a realistic 
Christmas-number tale — ‘ The Tragedy of Peny- 
wem Quarry; or. Little Willy Wears Poor 
Father’s Pants.’ How’s that for a title, hey?” 

Charlesworth, however, declined to criticise. 
“I’ve got to thank you for my life, sir,” he said, 
looking Farquhar straight in the face, as he 
always did. “If we’d stayed in that hole till 
the shovel-and-pick department nosed us out 
to-day or to-morrow, I guess they’d have got 
empty shells for their pains. Now I’ve a use 
for my life, and so has my wife. I don’t know 
whether gratitude’s any use to you, sir, but 
you may count on mine.” 

“Oh, that’s all right,” said Farquhar, easily. 
But he met and returned Charlesworth’ s look 
with some degree of honesty; and when Far- 
quhar was honest his eyes had the latent 
dangerous cruelty of one of the great cats, 
264 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


panther or leopard or tiger, and they showed 
the force of a will keen as a knife-blade to cut 
through obstacles. Charlesworth recognised 
these two unpleasant qualities and did not 
flinch; perhaps he had guessed that Farquhar 
was too good to be true. His steadiness called 
out a glint of satisfaction; when they had 
shaken hands, each felt this encounter to be 
the foundation of a friendship. “You’ll con- 
tinue as manager?” Farquhar said, as the 
American was going; and, “While you want 
me, sir,” came the proudly respectful reply. 

Farquhar was left alone with Lucian; the 
reckoning hour had come. 

Lucian was looking after Charlesworth with 
a lamentable air. “I like that man, but he 
don’t care a red cent for me,” he said, patheti- 
cally. “ He makes me feel so awfully small that 
I’m only fit for a microscope. And yet I’m 
sure I’ve been splendidly heroic. I had a 
splitting headache, and I never once let on. 
Though, to be sure, he mightn’t have known 
that. What are you looking so down in the 
mouth for, sonny?” 

Farquhar flung the letter at him and turned 
on his heel ; he stood staring out of the window*, 
his hands thrust deep in his pockets and clench- 
ed there. He heard Lucian’s “Hullo!” the 
tearing of the envelope, the withdrawal of the 
265 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


folded sheet grating against the torn flap. 
Then Lucian sprang off the sofa and came 
and dropped a hand on his shoulder. 

“I’m awfully glad, old man, and that’s the 
truth,” he said. “ I knew you’d win.” 

Farquhar wheeled round. “What’s that 
you say?” 

“Congratulations: that’s what I say.” 

“What the devil do you mean by such 
damnable nonsense as this?” 

“Hasn’t she written to you?” 

“Yes, confoimd her! I tell you, I was 
thirsting to leave you to die there, and rot, 
till the worms had done with you. I’d have 
given my right hand to do it. I’d have given 
my eyes.” 

“Oho!” said Lucian. “You would, would 
you? Why didn’t you, then?” 

“Confound you! What do you mean by 
asking such a question as that? You know 
well enough. Well, then, take her, and enjoy 
yourself. Mind you, I’ve given you back to 
her. You owe every second of joy you get out 
of her to me. And don’t you come playing 
the fool with your congratulations; I’d not 
swear but that some day I wouldn’t pick you 
up and snap your miserable little backbone in 
two, as I very well could. You’ll be feebler 
than your wife is, Lucian de Saumarez.” 

266 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


“Has she been writing to you?” 

“Haven’t I told you so? — curse her!” 

“What does she say?” 

“What does she say to you?” 

They stood watching each other like stags 
preparing to fight. Then Lucian held out his 
letter. Farquhar held out his in return and 
took Lucian’s with his other hand; the letters 
changed owners simultaneously. Farquhar de- 
voured the open page in an instant: 

“ Dear Mr. de Saumarez, — I have now made up 
my mind upon the question which you asked me. 
If you are still interested, and care to come and see 
me next time you are in England, I will tell you 
my decision. Sincerely yours, 

“ Mirabelle Fane.” 

“God! When’s the next train?” said Far- 
quhar. 


XIX 


ROMANCE BRINGS UP THE NINE-FIFTEEN 

F our o’clock at Oedlnne station, thirteen 
miles from Vresse. Rain was streaming 
down in torrents, yet of the two passengers 
waiting for the train only one was under the 
shelter; and when the other in momentary 
absence of mind came under the glass, the first 
vacated his seat and took refuge in the storm. 
There he stayed, keeping an immovable face 
while the wind lashed him and the grey lances 
of rain assailed him, staring steadily at the 
silver-and-golden line along the horizon under 
the storm-cloud, and the amber glow which 
was slowly transfusing the sombre brown 
swells of vapour. Mademoiselle Helene-Marie- 
Denise Bonin-Watelot, the signal-man’s eldest 
hope, with whom Farquhar had conscientiously 
made friends on his journeys to Brussels, came 
up and told him the number of the forks she 
had washed and the nature of the garters which 
she wore; but she got no pralines to-day from 
the big pocket in the overcoat. 

268 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


When the train came in, the rivals got into 
different carriages as far apart as might be. 
Glad enough were they to be moving at all, 
though they stopped at every station. No 
lover journeying to his bride, nor widow 
hurrying to the sick-bed of her only son, ever 
found the giant steam more laggard. Five 
o’clock brought them to Houyet, where they 
changed trains and had their second encounter ; 
for the platform was crowded, and Farquhar, 
springing into an empty seat at the moment 
before their start, found himself face to face 
with Lucian, and fled out again with an 
exclamation which the Belgian ladies, sitting 
stout and placid in an atmosphere of in- 
describable tobacco, luckily did not understand. 
Lucian, spite of his anxiety, nearly choked 
with laughter to see his friend hurrying into 
the company of three babies and a nurse, in 
preference to travelling up with him. Far- 
quhar had a delightful journey; he stood all the 
way to Dinant and enjoyed a chorus of wails 
at every tunnel. 

Six o’clock: Dinant sailed into sight and 
brought their third change. And now they 
had to wait for a full half-hour. The rain 
was done ; the sunlight streamed over the 
earth like a tissue of gold, and across the blue 
sky floated low huge masses of dove - grey 
269 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


cloud, clear-edged with pearl, and higher, mo- 
tionless as though painted on .the motionless 
dome, long plumes of immaculate white widened 
out to the wind. The indefatigable artist tried 
to describe the scene with a stump of lead-pen- 
cil on the back of Dolly’s letter while he waited. 

Travelling up through the lovely rocky 
valley of the Meuse, bright -himg with rain- 
drops, Farquhar sat watch in hand count- 
ing the minutes; for their train was late, and 
there was a doubt whether it could catch the 
main-line connection at Namur, and if they 
failed in that they could not cross that night 
and must wait a whole day more ere hearing 
Dolly’s decree. Seven found them passing 
Yvoir, the sky bare of clouds, and the wide 
Meuse rosing herself in the sunset’s glow, 
which stained the very granite cliffs and dyed 
the green of young leaves madder - brown. 
Half -past seven : they were coming into Namur 
station, ten minutes late, and the Brussels 
express was due. Standing up, Farquhar held 
himself in readiness. Before the wheels were 
still he had sprimg out, leaping with the train 
to balance his initial velocity, and was running 
along the platform towards the main line, 
for he knew his way. Lucian did not know 
his way, but he did not stay to ask it; he ran 
after Farquhar. There was a crowd, and two 
270 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


stout Belgians, excitedly discussing the won- 
derful rescue at Vresse, got right in his way: 
as he reached the platform the train began to 
move, and Lucian, who was too much ex- 
hausted to do more than just clutch at the 
foot-board, would certainly have been left had 
not somebody opened the door of a first-class 
carriage and hauled him in by the collar and 
tail of his coat. Lucian collapsed, utterly 
spent, his face as white as paper; the stranger 
ministered to his needs with half a glass of 
brandy, and assisted him to a seat. There 
Lucian lay with his eyes shut for several 
minutes before he found energy even to feel 
curiosity concerning his saviour. To a person 
of Lucian’s inquisitive temper, three minutes is 
an ason of time. 

When his heart had moderated its suffocat- 
ing pulsations and his eyes had ceased to swim, 
he made use of them, and discovered that his 
companion was a slight, fair-haired, good-look- 
ing young Englishman dressed in grey — who 
was watching him with a good deal of friend- 
liness out of a pair of dark-grey eyes. Lucian 
smiled back and gave him a military salute, 
being still beyond speech. 

“You were almost left behind,” said the 
stranger. Lucian nodded. “I hope I didn’t 
tear your coat.” 


271 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


Lucian put up his hand and found a long rent, 
but he smiled on. “No, it’s all right, thanks. 
I’m no end obliged to you. I was dead set on 
catching this train; there’d have been Holy 
Moses to settle if I’d missed it.” 

“I’m glad.” 

“You crossing to-night?” 

“Yes, I’m going back,” said the stranger, 
taking a paper out of his bag. Lucian made 
a bet with himself as to what that paper 
would be, and transferred a sixpence from the 
right-hand pocket of his coat to the left when 
the Spectator came into view. The Engineer 
Journal followed. “Oho!” said Lucian to him- 
self; “a soldier of the king, my friend, are you? 
That’s why you look so smart.” He went 
on aloud: “I’ve a kind of idea you saved my 
life, you know.” 

“ By pulling you in? Surely not.” 

“No-o; not that way. By the kindly, fe- 
licitous, and opportunitatious administration of 
O. D. V.” 

“You ought not to run if you have trouble 
with your heart,” said the stranger, unfolding 
the Spectator preparatory to beginning to read. 

“Thirteen different sawboneses have told 
me that very same thing,” Lucian confessed; 
“but it’s one of those things no fellow can 
remember.” 


272 




LOVE IN CHIEF 

“I dare say it is difficult,” the stranger 
assented, his eyes on the printed page. 

In face of that august Spectator, Lucian had 
not the impudence to go on talking, though his 
own thoughts were far from pleasant company. 
He amused himself by studying the delicate 
and rather feminine profile and the long eye- 
lashes of his vis-a-vis, trying from them to read 
his character and from his clothes his position 
and prospects; and the longer he looked the 
more certain he grew that both should be known 
to him. 

“ Where have I seen 37'our face before? 

It seems so familiar to me!” 

whistled Lucian softly to himself, trying to 
fit together fragments of memory, as in one 
of those terrible improving Scripture puzzles 
which had haunted the Sundays of his child- 
hood. Bright sunshine, an architrave of light- 
coloured wood framing an open door, and some 
bright figure standing beside him: his brain 
served up these scraps of information, but he 
could not complete the picture. His feverish 
mind had cooled. Lucian was not by nature 
excitable; it was the electrical influence of 
Farquhar’s stormy temperament which threw 
him off his balance, and in his wildest move- 
ments he was never mastered by a single motive 

273 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


and passion to the exclusion of every other, as 
happened to Farquhar. So now, anxiety re- 
specting Dolly lay like a core of ice within his 
heart while the surface of his fertile brain was 
occupied in weaving a romantic secret history 
for the quiet yotmg aristocrat of the Spectator. 
By the time they had reached Brussels he had 
made him a bigamist inclining to trigamy, and 
was only not sure whether he had poisoned his 
first wife or his mother. 

Nine, ten, half-past. Darkness had fallen, 
spangled with stars, and the southwest wind 
came sweeping across the sky with a full and 
steady pressure which reminded Lucian of the 
strong blue tide of the Trades. Brussels 
sparkling in lights lay far behind, and Ghent 
was passed, and they tore through Bruges 
with three screeches, leaving a trail of opalescent 
smoke threaded with fire, and noisily rocking 
and stuffily smelling as a Belgian train alone 
can. Over the wide fiat lands they raced, with 
a throbbing repeated in triplets as clear as 
the gait of a galloping horse. No tunnels were 
here ; a grating rush and a roar told when they 
passed a canal and mirrored their square golden 
windows one after one in the glass of the water, 
so dark and so still. Lucian leaned out, re- 
ceived a peppering of grit from the engine, 
and got his first breath of the sea. There in the 
274 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


west the sky glowed over Ostend. He rel- 
egated the aristocratic stranger to a prison 
dark and drear, with prospects of the gallows, 
and turned from his own fancies to face the 
facts of life. Years dropped away like dead 
leaves; he lived again through the hours when 
he gambled with Meryon while his wife lay 
dead above. In those hours he had come to 
know despair; and now, displacing the veils 
which resolute courage drew across the face of 
truth, he saw the same inexorable lineaments 
confronting him. He had met them now in 
every path of life. He was a failure: Dolly 
was not for him. He had known this, while 
refusing to believe ; he did acknowledge it now, 
and reached the nadir of his troubles before 
the final sentence fell. 

“We shall have a rough crossing,” said the 
stranger, folding up his paper. “Are you a 
good sailor?” 

“ Tolerably vile ; are you ?” 

“Couldn’t be worse,” said the stranger, 
laughing. “ Do you go below ?” 

“No; I lie where I fall and abide in my 
misery until my journey’s end. Sic transit is 
my motto; and sick it always is, too.” 

“You’ll get wet through if you stay on deck 
to-night. Why don’t you try a private cabin? 
They’re comfortable.” 

275 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


“To tell the plain but honest truth,” said 
Lucian, cheerfully leaning back and stretching 
a pair of muddy boots on the opposite seat, 
“because I’m clean cleaned out. I’ve nothing 
but my fare up from Dover.” 

“I see.” 

The stranger stood up to lift down his bag 
and put on his overcoat, in all of which actions 
he was as neat and quiet and dainty as a cat. 
After a short pause he turned to Lucian again 
and said, with some hesitation, “I shall have 
a deck cabin myself; will you share it?” 

“I shall be awfully ill,” said Lucian, very 
much amazed. 

“So shall I.” 

“Well, under those circumstances you may 
be grateful and comforting; I’m disgusting. 
Sure you want me?” 

“ If I did not I should not have asked you,” 
said the stranger concisely. 

“It’s really remarkably good of you.” 

“Then that’s settled; thanks very much.” 

Thus it came to pass that Lucian and Lai 
crossed the Channel in one cabin, and very 
ill were they both, especially Lai, who suf- 
fered like a martyr, without one groan. He 
could hardly have done a thing more unselfish 
than this, but, unluckily, his conscience was too 
lofty - minded to applaud him for a sacrifice 
276 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


merely of personal dignity. Virtue failed to 
reward itself here. Moreover, he was partly 
of opinion that he had made a fool of himself 
in making friends with a stranger. The hollow 
sound of Lucian’s cough and the mournful 
display of dripping passengers at Dover were 
consolatory, inasmuch as they permitted him 
to father his impulsive behaviour on common 
humanity. 

Of those dripping passengers Farquhar was 
the wettest and least pitiable. For the past 
four hours he had been leaning over the bows, 
watching the speed of the steamer, and for- 
mulating arguments that should be urgent 
enough to procure him a special at Dover. 
Those arguments only failed because the thing 
was impossible. Cursing high and cursing low, 
Farquhar went to look at a time-table, and 
found that the quickest way to reach Monkswell 
was by going straight past it in the express 
up to London, and coming down again by the 
slow. He went off to take his ticket, con- 
fident that though he and his rival might 
arrive at Monkswell together he vrould yet 
be the first to see Dolly at Fanes. How that 
could be was his secret. 

But they did not arrive at Monkswell to- 
gether. Lucian’s unrecognised friend had a 
mind to follow Farquhar’ s plan, and he went 
277 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


up by the express; Lucian bade him good-bye 
and remained at Dover. When crossing in the 
spring he had made the acquaintance of a 
porter; between the station and the pier they 
had become intimate friends. Lucian sought 
out this man now, and by dint of much per- 
suasive eloquence seduced him into an alliance. 
There was no slow train up for some hours; 
but a goods train started immediately after the 
express. The porter and Lucian both talked 
to the driver of that engine from the time the 
boat came in till the goods train went off, 
and after its departure Lucian was no more 
to be seen at Dover Priory. It was strict- 
ly against the rules, no doubt, but rules are 
not imbreakable. The consequence was that 
Lucian was turned out at Faversham Junction 
at three in the morning, and there waited 
until a slow train up from the Kent coast-line 
carried him on to Monkswell. 

First of the three, Lucian reached the station 
at ten minutes to seven, and set off to walk 
to Fanes, at two miles’ distance. He was 
utterly tired; the exhaustion of the previous 
day’s adventures, capped by a long journey, 
bad sea-sickness, a sleepless night, and exciting 
anxiety, weighed down each step he made. 
He had had nothing to eat, feeling disinclined 
at Dover and lacking the chance at Monkswell. 

278 


LOVE IN CHIEF 

The familiar morning - scented coimtry lanes 
spun round him as he went. 

Nine minutes after the up, the down train 
from town came in, bringing Noel Farquhar and 
Lai Laurenson. Seeing each other for the first 
time on the platform, they saluted distantly. 
Lai passed straight out of the station from the 
down platform, whence a field path led past 
the station-master’s pigsties and clothes-line to 
the road. Farquhar crossed over to the main 
buildings of the station, on the up platform, 
and there in the yard found his dog-cart waiting 
with an extremely sleepy groom. This was 
his trump card ; he had telegraphed to Simpson 
from Gedinne before ever they started ; by this 
he hoped to forestall Lucian at Fanes. And 
now all three had entered on the final stage of 
their journey. 

Farquhar’ s dog-cart flew down the hill and 
under the railway arch, noiselessly running 
on its rubber tyres : past the surgery and 
through the village and on into the country 
lanes, long tunnels of green sprinkled with 
sunlight. The irreproachable Simpson still sat 
behind. They turned a sharp corner, and the 
horse shied across the road: Farquhar checked 
him mercilessly, glanced back to see the cause 
of offence, and pulled him up short. Lucian sat 
clasping his knees by the way-side. 

^9 279 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


He looked up ; consciousness of defeat 
blent with laughing and charitable defi- 
ance was writ on his face; impotent anger 
and deadly impatience on Farquhar’s. He 
tossed the reins to his groom with a curt, 
“Hold that,” sprang down, and went to Lu- 
cian. 

“Come, will you? Confound you!” 

Lucian’s face changed. “ Going to give me a 
lift, sonny?” 

“ D’ you suppose I can leave you here?” 

“Right, then; I’m dead beat.” 

For the second time Farquhar picked him 
up and deposited him in the dog-cart; and they 
drove on together. 

Half a mile beyond this the gates of Fanes 
confronted the road. As the horse slackened 
to ascend the hill, the groom jumped down 
to throw them open, but when he turned he 
saw that they were open already, and that his 
master’s carriage was vanishing down the slope. 
He ran after it for a little way ; then with great 
philosophy relapsed among the bushes and got 
out his pipe. 

Farquhar drove noiselessly down the smooth 
yellow drive between snow - wreathed aca- 
cias, past the stream and past the lawn 
and past the rookery, till at the turn of the 
path where it widened to the sweep and the 
280 


LOVE IN CHIEF 

house came in sight, he again pulled up with a 
jerk. 

In the fresh morning sunshine before the 
open door stood Dolly, in her blue frock, calling 
the pigeons to be fed. They sailed down to 
her, blue, and fawn, and white as snow, settling 
around and upon her, and she scattered hand- 
fuls of grain which glittered like gold. Her 
milk-white skin, her chestnut hair, her corn- 
flower dress were bright and pure in colour as the 
sunlight itself. One pigeon floated down with 
outspread quiet wings and alit on her bare head, 
and she laughed as she shook it off : a careless 
laugh, a free gesture, which brought the blood 
to Lucian’s face. Then Farquhar’s hand fell 
on his arm, and he saw what he had not seen 
before, what Dolly, with her back turned, still 
did not see: the figure of a young man in a 
grey suit in the act of leaning a bicycle against 
the wall, a bicycle which unkindly refused to 
stand. He settled it at last, came noiselessly 
behind, and slipped his arm round the curve of 
her waist. 

Dolly turned to him; the watchers saw her 
colour blossom and the breaking of light over 
her beautiful, vivid young face, as her basket 
slid down the curve of her drooping arm and 
spilled her golden store. 

“You!” she said. “Back already! I’ve 
281 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


wished ten times an hour I’d never sent you, 
Lai.” 

Lucian shut his eyes. Farquhar, without a 
word, dragged the chestnut round and lashed 
him till he went flying back up the drive, 
scattering pebbles at every step. 


XX 


so THEY TWO WENT ON 

I N the break that followed, both turned 
and looked after the dog-cart. Dolly spoke 
first. “There!” she said, clasping her hands 
together; “now it’s done!” 

“They had no business to listen,” Lai said. 
It was his embarrassment that spoke, but Dolly 
turned on him in a flash. “Lucian listen? 
Lucian would no more listen than you would. 
They could not help seeing.” Again she 
pressed her hands together, and let them 
drop at her side with a gesture unconsciously 
tragic. “I wish it had not happened so, Lai!” 

“I don’t wonder you like him; he’s very 
attractive.” 

“I’m so sorry for him!” She lifted her 
candid eyes. “ Because I say little, never 
think I don’t feel. Well, it can’t be helped 
now.” She turned the basket upside down 
over the pigeons crowding round her feet, and 
brushed the husks from her skirt. “Did you 
bring them back with you? Did you know 
283 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


they were coming? Last night’s paper said 
they were rescued, no more.” 

Lai gave her an evening journal, price three 
centimes, whose themes were murder and 
sudden death and the seventh commandment, 
all printed in vile black type upon villanous 
drab paper. “When I got to Namur I saw 
this. I thought it useless to go on,” he said, 
while Dolly skimmed through a highly sen- 
sational narrative of Farquhar’s heroism and 
Lucian’s fortitude. “I actually travelled in 
the same carriage with De Saumarez, but I did 
not recognise him. Last time we met I think 
he had not shaved for several days,” he finished, 
with a smile. Dolly let her paper drop against 
her skirt. 

“I never should have sent you, Lai; I ought 
to have known better. I to think he had 
hurt Lucian ! Oh, I have been a fool. A baby 
could not be more harmless than Noel Far- 
quhar when he cares for any one ; and he does 
care for Lucian. There, I’ve been in the wrong 
all through. I like him; I like both of them. 
This is a hateful affair. I wonder, I do wonder 
what they’ll do.” 

“I should fancy that Farquhar will console 
himself within the year,” said Lai, perversety. 
“ I’m very sorry for De Saumarez.” 

“ That is sheer prejudice. Lucian is far more 
284 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


likely to get over it soon than Noel Farqnhar. 
In fact, I don’t believe he ever will get over it. 
Well!” She looked away at the golden sky, 
sighing, her brows drawn down. ‘‘I can’t go 
to them myself, that’s certain, nor can you. 
I must write and explain, I suppose.” 

“Dolly,” Lai said, detaining her, “you have 
never told me which, after all, you meant to 
take when you summoned them in that fashion.” 

“I dare say you’ll think me a fool,” Dolly 
said, after a pause. “ I hate vacillating people 
myself; but the truth is — I could not make 
up my mind. I could hardly bear to refuse 
Lucian; yet Noel Farquhar fascinated me, I 
don’t deny it. His is such a strong character, 
and he did care for me. Then Lucian was 
penniless, while Mr. Farquhar was rich and in a 
good position; and I’m ambitious, Lai. Be- 
sides, Bernard was continually warning me 
against him. And I was so completely in love 
with you that I did not very much care what 
I did with myself. You did trouble me so,” 
she broke off, her voice softening to a richer 
inflection. “You almost broke my heart. I 
was so proud of you for being what you are; 
and to find you in that place! I could have 
died for grief; I could have beaten out my 
eyes for seeing it.” 

“Oh, Dolly!” said Lai, and bent down 
285 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


quickly to kiss her. The shy, swift, furtive 
movement brought tears to Dolly’s eyes. 
There was reverence in his touch, there was even 
awe; and so, for the first time, Dolly tasted 
the grace of true humility. » 

“Well” — she picked up the thread of her 
confession with a sigh — “ I suppose it has to be 
told. As I say, I could not see what to do; 
and I did not care myself; and Bernard would 
advise me till I was mazed with thinking. So 
I ended by leaving it to chance.” 

“And how did you settle it?” 

“ I said I would accept the one who reached 
me first.” 

“ I reached you first, Dolly.” 

“And do you want more of me than you’ve 
got?” Dolly said, turning on him her face, full 
of sweetness and fire. 

“What have I got? A bare 'Yes,’ and 
nothing more!” 

“Your own fault, for asking such a question 
in such a place. I longed to sink into the ground. 
Besides, I gave you the promise of my marriage 
vows; isn’t that enough?” 

“What marriage vows?” 

“Love; honour; obedience.” 

‘ ‘ Love — honour, ’ ’ Lai repeated, strongly 
moved. “Do you give those to me, Dolly? 
You make me ashamed.” 

286 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


“ You know I give them. I give everything.” 

“Even obedience? Dolly, will you ever 
obey anybody?” 

“Certainly I shall,” Dolly said, with proud 
humility. “ I take my stand with other wom- 
en; we all promise to obey, and I shall obey. 
I always keep my promises. There, dearest, 
let me go now and write. Afterwards — ” 

Noel Farquhar came into his library at The 
Lilacs and unlocked his writing-table, one of 
those elegant roll-top American contrivances 
full of drawers and pigeon-holes. He took out 
his blotter, his writing-paper, and his revolver. 
He made sure that this was properly loaded, 
and then dipped pen in ink and began to write. 

“TO THE CORONER 

“ Dear Sir, — “ I wish it clearly to be understood 
that I write in sound physical health, and that my 
brain is not, and never has been, in danger of insanity. 
I purpose shortly to commit suicide by shooting my- 
self, and I do not wish my body to receive rites in 
which I never have had a shadow of belief. In plain 
English, I, not being a Christian, do not desire Chris- 
tian burial. I have neither hope nor wish for a joy- 
ful resurrection. This has been my lifelong creed. 
I have been at the pains to belie it, and live as the 
model of virtue, both in public and private, in order 
to earn the esteem of my respectable British fellow- 
287 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


citizens. I challenge any man living to say I have 
not succeeded. Honesty is unquestionably the best 
policy for the man who wishes to thrive: experto 
crede. I would not wish to die with a lie on my lips; 
the taste of truth is pleasantly novel. 

“ Within the last few months the issue of a love- 
affair, together with certain pecuniary losses which 
endanger my political position, have contrived to 
make life uninteresting, and even burdensome. I 
see no chance of improvement, and have not the pa- 
tience to undergo present discomfort in the vague 
hope of a problematical future gain. I take the only 
logical course. In shooting myself I carry out a pur- 
pose conditionally framed as soon as I was old enough 
to think for myself. Let me again repeat that I am 
not mad; and let me beg, let me beseech the twelve 
worthy gentlemen who shall sit upon my body to bur- 
den their consciences with no unnecessary perjury, 
but to cap the inquest with a truthful verdict of felo 
de se. 

“ In conclusion, I commend to my biographers the 
study of my birthplace, parentage, and nationality. 
I refer them for information to the records of the 
province of Kiew, South Russia. 

“ I am, sir, faithfully yours, 

“Noel Dmitri Farquhar. 

“The Lilacs, Monkswell, 2/7/03.” 


When he had finished, he read over the let- 
ter with satisfaetion. While he was so doing, 
somebody opened the door and came noiselessly 
in. Farquhar glanced angrily over his shoulder ; 
but, seeing only Lucian de Saumarez, he went 
288 


LOVE IN CHIEF 


on with his reading, after taking the precau- 
tion of drawing his blotter across the revolver 
to hide it. With an indescribably guilty and 
shamefaced air, like a dog that has been caught 
stealing, Lucian went and lay down on the sofa. 
He was holding a handkerchief to his lips. 

Farquhar closed the letter and took the 
revolver, glancing again at Lucian. Lucian 
heard the movement, turned his head, and for 
the moment took away the stained handkerchief. 

“Farquhar, old man — ” he began; he could 
not get any further. 

Farquhar set his teeth on his underlip and 
swore. He sat immovable, looking dangerous, 
all rebellion ; and then the inevitable law of his 
nature asserted itself, as it had done before, as 
in him it always would: the power that held 
him in bondage. He tore the letter across and 
across and across again and flimg the fragments 
into the grate; he took up the revolver by the 
barrel and hurled it through the window across 
the flower-beds into the fountain on the lawn. 
He came and knelt by Lucian’s side, and lifted 
him with fierce tenderness against his breast. 

“ Confound you ! What have you been doing 
to yourself?” he said. 


THE END 


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